Political Quotes

“Thank you very much to the gentlelady from Wyoming for bringing up that point about what Medicaid does to State governments and about what the potential is to State governments and all the other programs that they have to fund. I will tell you that, with regard to what happens, what we know is that access under the Medicaid program is already suffering, the access of patients. Again, passing the Affordable Care Act puts an insurance card--a Medicaid card--in the hands of probably 10 to 12 million Americans, but that doesn't guarantee access to health care. As a physician, I've taken care of Medicaid patients for almost 30 years, but increasingly what I'm finding is my colleagues who are facing decreased payment reimbursements by the governments that are under financial hardship now. Even under current conditions, as this chart will show, there are very few States in the Union that actually have extra money around to fund that Medicaid increase. This chart shows various specialties and how Medicaid patients have access to them. Under the current reimbursement, which of course will get nothing but worse for specialists under the new Affordable Care Act, among all specialists, 89 percent of patients with private insurance have access to all specialists and only 34 percent of medical assistance patients, or Medicaid patients. That's true whether it's orthopedics, psychiatry, asthma, neurology, endocrinology, ear, nose and throat, or dermatology.…”