Post by Logan on Feb 16, 2016 3:00:48 GMT -6
Idaho Medicaid expansion debate framed by tragedy and public policy
At the Senate Health and Welfare hearing to consider the Medicaid expansion bills, one doctor from Eastern Idaho who had cared for a patient who died from severe asthma laid that death at the feet of the Idaho Legislature. In fact he suggested the legislature is “killing” hundreds of Idaho citizens. I thought I would look into that accusation.
We do know delay has cost dollars. By not acting in 2013 when we first could have, Idaho has lost hundreds of millions. But savings not received are like rain that didn’t fall; it’s hard to measure.
We do know that a positive decision by our Legislature and governor did result in savings for the taxpayer. The Catastrophic Health Care Fund Board, (CAT Fund), of which I am a member, returned to the state general fund this session almost $30 million almost all due to folks getting insurance through the state health insurance exchange.
So were lives lost that we can pin on us legislators? Jenny Steinke’s story is compelling. Her death reminded me of another from years ago. I treated a young man with severe asthma who would never come in because he had no insurance or money. He struggled, always on the edge of a severe attack. I hospitalized him a couple times and saw him in the office whenever he came in, giving him as much free medicine as I could gather. He hated the disease, the disability, but worse, his mounting debt. But then I signed his death certificate when he was found dead at home at the age of 30. If he’d had insurance would he be alive now? Was this death inevitable? The death averted by appropriate care is much like that rain that doesn’t fall; hard to know, hard to count. But it was always my goal as a physician.
Read more here: www.idahostatesman.com/opinion/readers-opinion/article60531481.html
At the Senate Health and Welfare hearing to consider the Medicaid expansion bills, one doctor from Eastern Idaho who had cared for a patient who died from severe asthma laid that death at the feet of the Idaho Legislature. In fact he suggested the legislature is “killing” hundreds of Idaho citizens. I thought I would look into that accusation.
We do know delay has cost dollars. By not acting in 2013 when we first could have, Idaho has lost hundreds of millions. But savings not received are like rain that didn’t fall; it’s hard to measure.
We do know that a positive decision by our Legislature and governor did result in savings for the taxpayer. The Catastrophic Health Care Fund Board, (CAT Fund), of which I am a member, returned to the state general fund this session almost $30 million almost all due to folks getting insurance through the state health insurance exchange.
So were lives lost that we can pin on us legislators? Jenny Steinke’s story is compelling. Her death reminded me of another from years ago. I treated a young man with severe asthma who would never come in because he had no insurance or money. He struggled, always on the edge of a severe attack. I hospitalized him a couple times and saw him in the office whenever he came in, giving him as much free medicine as I could gather. He hated the disease, the disability, but worse, his mounting debt. But then I signed his death certificate when he was found dead at home at the age of 30. If he’d had insurance would he be alive now? Was this death inevitable? The death averted by appropriate care is much like that rain that doesn’t fall; hard to know, hard to count. But it was always my goal as a physician.
Read more here: www.idahostatesman.com/opinion/readers-opinion/article60531481.html