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Post by Logan on Feb 12, 2016 19:23:37 GMT -6
For weeks I have read your substantive coverage regarding Idaho Sen. Dan Schmidt’s plan to close the Medicaid gap in our state using federal tax dollars compared to Gov. Otter’s Primary Care Access Plan to attempt to increase primary care access alone using state monies. The latter does so without coverage for medications, hospitalizations and procedures, unlike Sen. Schmidt’s plan. What I have been surprised by is that these two plans are compared together as alternatives for one another. In reality, the Primary Care Access Plan is unfortunately little more than an implausible attempt to address what polls say Idahoans overwhelmingly want in this state: improved access to health care. Sen. Schmidt’s plan accomplishes improved health care coverage by accepting federal funding and providing complete health insurance to the 78,000 Idahoans living without it. Gov. Otter’s plan provides $32 a month to those same individuals to try to find a primary care doctor (we have a large shortage of them in Idaho) to essentially provide charity care, as the coverage is provided at a loss to clinics. That doctor, if the patient can find one, would then offer the patient a view of all the care that they need, but have no insurance to obtain. I have seen that scenario play out far too many times in the hospital to my uninsured patients. Eventually, those patients become sick enough to get care, and are admitted to the hospital to receive it. Sometimes, those illnesses could have been less severe, less life-altering, if treated earlier. Read more here: www.idahostatesman.com/opinion/readers-opinion/article59966741.html
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