Wisconsin’s Government Health Care System Running Short

This provides a look at what a government-run system looks like. 

The state may be forced to cut more than $1 billion over the next 18 months from BadgerCare Plus and other health care programs for the disabled, elderly and low-income families.

The shortfall comes at a time when more people are turning to BadgerCare Plus because of the state’s battered economy. About 700,000 people were enrolled in BadgerCare Plus alone on Nov. 30, an increase of more than 70,000 since the start of the year. At the same time, state tax revenues have plummeted because of the economic downturn.

Bear in mind that the increase in enrollment was intentional.  Doyle and the Democrats opened up BadgerCare to people who didn’t previously qualify.  Many of those people have access to other plans, but BadgerCare is cheaper for them. 

So here’s a couple of the things they are looking at doing to “fix” the shortfall.

• Booking $195.4 million in savings - more than a third of the overall savings - through several one-time accounting changes, including delaying payments until just after the new state budget begins in mid-2011, according to the fiscal bureau.

In other words… accounting gimmicks and pushing off the expenditures to the future.  Who is owed those payments?  Doesn’t matter.  They have just been forced to extend a line of credit to the government.

• Increasing the use of generic drugs, potentially saving $71.3 million.

I have no problem with generic drugs, but shouldn’t that be a decision for the patient and his or her doctor?  Not in this case.  The word is coming from on high to use more generic drugs. 

• Pegging the price paid to pharmacies for generic drugs closer to their wholesale costs, potentially saving $50.9 million.

Screwing the pharmacists by looking for cost savings in their net income. 

• Reducing the amount allocated for administrative costs for managed care companies outside of southeastern Wisconsin, potentially saving $32.5 million.

Again, those administrative costs don’t go away.  The government just won’t pay for them.  Who pays?  The rest of us who aren’t in the government system. 

• Cutting reimbursements to certain rural hospitals by 10%, potentially saving $15 million.

This is huge.  As the story states, rural hospitals are actually reimbursed 100% of their costs - unlike most health care providers.  By cutting 10%, their costs won’t be covered.  Two things will happen.  The hospitals will try to shift those costs to people who aren’t in BadgerCare and they will have to cut back staff and/or services.  So much for a government system helping people get access to healthcare. 

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The only reason these government systems are halfway viable is because they are able to shift much of their cost to those of us who are not in the system.  When they don’t pay for the entire cost of a service, the health care provider shifts those costs to the rest of us.  What happens when there isn’t a “rest of us?”

Posted by Owen at 0631 hrs
Politics + Politics - Wisconsin