Side Effects: Medicaid Reimbursement Crisis Hits Texas

Kathryn Nix / July 14, 2010

Obamacare promises that, some years down the road, every American will have health insurance. But the whole point of having health insurance is to get medical care when you need it, and that’s not part of the Obamacare promise.

The new law aims to use Medicaid to cover 16 million otherwise uninsured Americans in 2019.  But there’s a problem with Medicaid.  It reimburses doctors at rates dramatically lower than private insurers do.  In fact, it pays doctors far less than even Medicare does. In many cases, Medicaid reimbursement does not even cover the overhead cost of treatment, meaning that physicians actually lose money treating Medicaid patients. (more…)