- State proposes increases in Medicaid co-pays, By Misty Williams, July 14, 2011, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: “Children could be among the hardest hit by proposed increases in co-pays for Medicaid enrollees and the creation of co-pays for families in the state’s PeachCare for Kids health care program starting this fall. A plan to double existing co-pays for inpatient hospital services to $25 is also among the changes proposed by the Georgia Department of Community Health that would save the state an estimated $4.2 million. Co-pays for prescription drugs, vision care and other services would also climb under the plan outlined at a department board meeting Thursday. Children ages 6 and older enrolled in PeachCare would be the most dramatically affected by the changes, which would take effect Sept. 1, since those families don’t currently have co-pays, said Jerry Dubberly, the state’s Medicaid division chief. PeachCare provides health care to more than 200,000 children through age 18 who don’t qualify for Medicaid and have family incomes up to 235 percent of the federal poverty level…”
- Fewer Utah doctors to treat Medicaid patients, By Kirsten Stewart, July 10, 2011, Salt Lake Tribune: “When people ask family practitioner Ray Ward if he does charity care, he likes to joke, ‘Yes, I take Medicaid.’ It means making less money, but the Bountiful doctor does it out of a sense of duty. ‘I still come out OK at the end of the year,’ he says. ‘So far, I haven’t had to turn anyone away. I still accept [Medicaid] patients.’ Physicians like Ward, however, are in increasingly short supply. In Utah the number of doctors who accept Medicaid has shrunk 25 percent in 11 years. This year, 3,166 doctors are certified to bill the low-income health program, down from 4,210 in 2000. That’s just over half of the state’s 5,844 practicing physicians. Meanwhile, Medicaid enrollment, now at about 244,470, is swelling with no immediate end in sight…”
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty