Monday, January 7, 2008

Ohio Hospitals Concerned About Uninsured

Surprise! Liberals want Medicaid expanded

By Marc Kilmer

Categories: Medicaid, Ohio

Hospitals in Ohio are concerned about the rising number of uninsured patients who are using their emergency rooms. As John Graham's post below discusses, there are many aspects of this type of story that the media miss.

What I find most interesting is the implicit call by the Universal Health Care Action Network of Ohio to expand Medicaid to deal with this "crisis." As the chart accompanying the Columbus Dispatch article discussing this issue illustrates, Medicaid recipients use the emergency room quite a lot, too. Something that Medicaid proponents don't like to acknowledge is the fact that hospitals actually receive more in payment from the average uninsured patient than they do for the average Medicaid recipient.

More Medicaid isn't the answer to the "crisis" of the uninsured in the emergency room.