Judge Denies McDonnell's Bid to Dismiss Corruption Charges

From The Medical Society of Virginia site:

“Virginia Medicaid, in its fee-for-service business, has just one statewide fee schedule with no geographic variation. Accordingly, under its fee for service business, a physician receives the same
reimbursement for a 99214 code whether the services are provided in Virginia Beach, Wytheville or Fairfax.

However, over one-half of all Medicaid and FAMIS recipients are enrolled in one of several private health plans. These health plans contract directly with providers and, although it is dangerous to make
generalizations about multiple plans which all have multiple provider contracts, generally pay as much or more than the fee-for-service Medicaid fee.

Health plan penetration varies by region of the state and this could contribute to the impression that fees vary by region. In addition, health plans do not all pay exactly the same fees. Each one develops
its own contracts with providers. This also may contribute to the impression that fees vary by region. In addition, some variation may exist among plans even within a single region.

In summary, any apparent variation in Medicaid fees, by geographic region, is not due to a geographic differential intentionally built into the Medicaid fee schedule because no such differential exists. If such
variation occurs, it is a result of the fact that there are several health plans, each contracting separately in the development of its own network of providers.”

As to the rest, I agree with you. All of those things are problematic… although I will assert that increases in health care costs pre-obamacare over the rate of inflation can likely be attributed to Government interference of one sort or another since medical services that have not traditionally been covered by insurance did not see the same increases.

I believe the federal and state governments provide money, mostly in the form of grants, that pays for the care of indigent patients. Hospitals will also make arrangements for non-medicaid self pay patients to pay their bills off in installments.

That people should have insurance to cover medical care (and that ER visits would be less frequent if they did) is an argument used during the Obamacare debate, too. Here is the thing, though. It is cheaper to pay for such care using the ad hoc system in place right now than it would be to expand the bureaucracy and cover people under Medicaid. Remember, the really poor and the really young (children) are already covered when needed under current Medicaid. The expansion would cover people who are, at least in theory, able-bodied, employed and young enough that they should cover the cost of their own healthcare.

I have been in that position before where I had no insurance and needed medical care. It sucked but I got through it and d(eventually) paid those bills off. That is how it should be. They were MY bills, not yours and certainly not every citizen of this Commonwealths. It would not have been right to foist them off on someone elso even if I could.

Actually, it does offend me. I also think that the cost of both healthcare and higher eduction have been vastly distorted and inflated by governmental involvement.

Grants. Now we are getting to my point. Do the Medicaid providers get hundreds of millions, or billions each year on Virginia to care for the uninsured and poor?

Do they make decisions on who gets what kind of treatment, and who does not?

Is it true that these providers do not want to have any accountability for each patient? In other words, they do not want to bill for each individual patient and what kind of treatment they received?

Could it be that the way the current system is, this excludes them from any type of fraud accusations? No accountability, because They do not have to bill for the treatment that each individual patient receives?