CO Medicaid cuts reimbursement rates. Will your insurance premiums go up?

July 13th, 2009 | by Brian Schwartz |

“Doctors in Colorado began to see reductions in their reimbursements from the Medicaid program on Wednesday as an effort to fill financial gaps in the state’s budget,” reports a recent Denver Business Journal article. This could mean higher premiums for those who with a non-government health plan. Last year Bloomberg reported that

Inadequate reimbursements by programs such as Medicare and Medicaid increase the annual cost of covering a family of four by $1,788, according to the report, issued today by the actuarial consulting firm Milliman Inc.

For more on that, see here.

Colorado Medicaid has copayements that do not exceed $10.   Most of the copayments cost less than a movie rental.

I suspect that it could keep costs down by making increasing them even slightly, rather than it paying for health care that appears free to patients at the point of service.   For some perspective on whether a copay amount is high or low, I suggest the Consumer Expenditure Survey by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Here’s data for 2006, for example.

I’d need to look at the Medicaid;s income-based eligibility to make a good analysis, but the information on the website wasn’t clear to me.

For a good video showing how much people spend on non-medical expenses, see here.

tags: , , ,
  • Fred
    The Denver Biz Journal has a faulty understanding of pricing. Like any other producer, people who produce health care always have the option of providing less health care to people who less. This is why Medicaid patients already have problems getting appointments and are largely religated to clinic medicine. Academic estimates also suggest that hospitals adjust the intensity of care to meet payment levels.

    It is no accident that hospitals are closing or in disarray in areas where the primary sources of funding are Medicaid and Medicare, government programs that control costs by failing to pay people who provide health care.

    Expanding government control to the privately insured will make the fiscal problems much worse.
blog comments powered by Disqus