COMMENTARY: Wishy Washy ObamaCare Buddies


The poor and the sick folks who currently make too much money to qualify for Medicaid in Oklahoma have pooled their meager resources to lobby hard for Medicaid expansion, buying expensive media ads under the name, “Oklahomans for a Healthy Economy.”

O.K. Enough sarcasm.

These ads are funded by those who would benefit from more taxpayer Medicaid loot — the big hospitals. If the poor had organized this push, for instance, they would not have minded mentioning the word “Medicaid,” which, of course, the ads never do.

I wish these hospitals would make up their mind. On the one hand, they claim that Medicaid payments (more than what Surgery Center of Oklahoma has listed online) (http://www.surgerycenterok.com/pricing.php) are killing their profits, set way below their costs forcing them to shift the losses to other patients/payers. On the other hand they want to expand this program. This is kind of like, “… Our emergency room is a loss leader, but we are going to build on to it.” None of this adds up.

The hospital lobby is pushing hard in Oklahoma because the governor of the state has taken a stand, a hard stand, to reject the Obamacare exchanges and its expansion of Medicaid. Even our local media, heavily funded by corporate medicine, has turned on the hospitals, one media outlet recently characterizing the Obamacare vehicle these hospitals want so badly, as a Ford Pinto. The editorial in the Sunday Oklahoman asks essentially if Oklahomans want to ride as a passenger in such a vehicle.

Sometimes I think that these hospital folks have forgotten some of the lessons of childhood, where, for instance, the more a child begs at the grocery store for a candy bar at the check out counter, the less likely they are to get one as the parent’s frustration with them grows.

I hope that our governor’s disgust with the hospital whining helps her to grow even more resolute in her stance. This is politics, though, and while the governor has remained strong, the Republican version of crony politics continues to raise its head, attempting in new devious and renamed ways to funnel money to their hospital pals.

The hospitals aren’t the only ones who can’t make up their minds, though. Remember the government promise that the uncompensated care scam would end with Obamacare? Remember the hospitals begging for Medicaid expansion because of the end of this revenue stream? Well, it turns out that the hospitals are going to get to keep their uncompensated care scam, after all!

You would think that this would dampen their media and political push for Medicaid expansion. Nope. And that’s not all.

Remember the Medicare payment cuts that were going to hit the hospitals as part of Obamacare? Remember the hospitals using this, as well, to bolster their arguments for the need for an expansion of Medicaid? Well, it turns out that they are now getting a raise from Medicare!

Why can’t any of these hospital or government folks make up their minds? I’m thinking that the question most commonly asked at the Obamacare drawing board was perhaps, “… How much do you think we can get away with?” All of this wishy-washiness then makes sense.

 

NOTE: Dr. Smith is founder of Surgery Center of Oklahoma.