The state Department of Health Care Policy and Financing has failed to implement 51 audit recommendations that it agreed to accept during the past two years, auditors told a panel of lawmakers Thursday.
Most serious, auditors said, are failure to properly document proof that Medicaid recipients are eligible for the program and deficiencies in record-keeping that assures health care providers are approved to treat Medicaid patients.
Some lawmakers who attended the joint meeting of the House and Senate health committees expressed outrage that the practices recommended to remedy problems were delayed, in some cases multiple times.
“As a taxpayer, it’s kind of insulting,” said Sen. Joyce Foster, D-Denver. “I am so frustrated with this kind of bureaucracy. I guess that’s what leads to people concerned about big government.”
On behalf of the Independence Institute, Rob Natelson and I wrote an amicus brief on the Medicaid mandate currently before the Supreme Court. (The ACA requirement that states must drastically expand Medicaid eligibility, or lose all their federal matching funds for Medicaid.)
John Goodman explains how Massachusetts residents have long waits for medical appointments, and how this problem will spread nation wide as ObamaCare is implemented. His key point:
Are you having difficulty finding a doctor who will see you? If you are, brace yourself. Things are about to get a whole lot worse.
Right now, the biggest problems are in Massachusetts. …For the state as a whole, the average wait to see a new family doctor is one month. More than half of all family doctors and more than half of all internists are not accepting new patients at all.
What if you live in another state? Just wait two more years. In Massachusetts people are lined up waiting to see doctors because of the health reform championed by the former governor (RomneyCare). And as Barack Obama has said on more than one occasion, RomneyCare is the model for ObamaCare.
Why? In both the Massachusetts health plan and the new health care law the mistake is the same: insuring the uninsured, but doing nothing to enable the medical community to deliver more care.
Obamacare, signed in March 2010, has not reduced the rate of growth of health-insurance premiums, which increased by 20 percent in the small group market between 2008 and 2010.
Obamacare subsidizes states to increase political control of health-insurance premiums, although there continues to be no evidence that such interference reduces the rate of growth of premiums.
When monitoring competition, government regulators use a measurement of market concentration that does poorly when applied to choice in health insurance.
New evidence continues to support the conclusion that Obamacare will lead to less choice of health insurance.
The bill requires the department of health care policy and
financing (state department) to seek a federal waiver to allow for increased flexibility and efficiency in the management of the medicaid program and the children’s basic health plan.
The waiver will seek authorization to determine eligibility
categories and income levels and to establish an asset test for eligibility, implement cost-sharing and premiums, encourage the use of private health benefits coverage, and encourage persons to maintain employer-sponsored health insurance. As part of the waiver, the state department may negotiate for capped federal reimbursements with provisions for adjustments in the federal reimbursements for population growth and inflation.
The state department shall report to the general assembly
concerning the waiver request and identify necessary changes to state law to implement the reforms requested in the waiver.
Encouraging this use of (nominally) private health plans: The bill text says: “Encourage the use of the private health benefits coverage market rather than public benefits systems.” This is also a good idea. Medicaid is a dreadful program in terms of access to care, fraud, and cost to taxpayers. See also “Medicaid’s Unseen Costs” by Michael Cannon.
If the political left approves of food stamps (food vouchers for private grocery stores) rather than government-run grocery stores for the poor, then why not the same for health plans?
Capping federal funding: Matching funds from the Feds is a disaster. It encourages waste and rewards Colorado bureaucrats for spending taxpayers’ money. For more, read my posts about Medicaid Block Grants. Or watch the video above for a summary.
Thanks to Colorado Senate News for informing me about this bill.
One of the biggest fears the American people have about the new health overhaul law is that government will control decisions involving their health care, usurping the doctor-patient relationship.
They have reason to be afraid. A report is in which details the blast of $1.1 billion in early spending on “comparative effectiveness research” (CER) by the Obama administration, and it shows the government already is setting up the systems to direct doctors to practice Washington-approved medicine. …
Government CER sounds like a progressive solution, but it is actually a frightening move that puts government detailers between patients and doctors and favors one-size-fits-none cost cutting over continued medical progress.
Canadians with chronic conditions are frequent users of the health-care system, but a new report shows many experience considerable difficulty getting the medical treatment they need.
Romney’s claim that the Massachusetts plan didn’t include price controls may have been technically true at the time the law was passed. But he helped create an unsustainable system that has quickly and predictably led to price controls — with still more to come. Hence, Romney’s claim is disingenuous if not downright misleading.
In an article last year about how ObamaCare‘s empowers the Department of Health and Human Services to control insurance companies, Michael Cannon quotes economist Russ Roberts:
Economist Russ Roberts recently explained one of the main themes of Friedrich Hayek’s 1944 book The Road to Serfdom: “When the state has the final say on the economy, the political opposition needs the permission of the state to act, speak and write. Economic control becomes political control.” One need not agree with all of Hayek’s conclusions to see how Obamacare is threatening political freedom.
[U]nder ObamaCare, your doctor will be increasingly pressured into sacrificing your individual medical interests for a nebulous “social justice.”
In traditional Western medical ethics, a doctor’s fundamental responsibility is to practice to the best of his ability for his patient’s benefit. But lately, doctors are being taught a radical new collectivist medical ethics where the “social good” trumps the individual patient’s welfare. …
Physicians should sacrifice the interests of their individual patients to save money for the collective.
