Another Note on the House Public Option
The Washington Post points out today that, by divorcing public plan rates from Medicare in their final health reform bill, House Democrats might have to hike Medicaid eligibility to 150 percent of poverty as a compensation measure.
The shuffle looks fine on paper. After all, coverage is coverage, right?
Actually, no.
As we’ve pointed out here before, expanding Medicaid might be an attractive way, in the eyes of lawmakers, to tackle the nation’s endemic uninsured problem because it’s cheaper than other insurance. But it doesn’t necessarily mean that those folks will have access to health care — for the very same reason of cost. That is, Medicaid pays doctors and hospitals at such low rates relative to other plans that many providers don’t accept Medicaid patients.
The question Democrats might want to ask as this plan moves forward, then, is this: what good is expanding a program that no one accepts?
