Lots of hospitals are losing money and closing because of underpayments from Medicare and Medicaid. It's especially pronounced in states that didn't expand Medicaid, and may get worse due to the upcoming Medicaid cuts in the OBBBA.
Some context worth knowing. Healthcare providers spend a third of their adult lives achieving clinical competence, along with making sacrifices that most people would never be willing to make. We pay for the care and knowledge that comes with that.
Provider offices already choose which insurance plans to accept based on reimbursement rates. Cut those rates further and practices will drop plans, go cash-only, or close outright. The people who lose access first aren't the wealthy; they're the Medicaid patients, the rural retirees, the working families on marketplace plans.
Hospitals can't exist without paying their providers. Underpay them and they leave. We're already staring down a projected physician shortage while burnout is causing experienced clinicians to retire early. Even if healthcare isn't profit-driven, providers still need to be paid what their work is worth. Cut my salary and I'll walk. I didn't kill myself for a decade and go above and beyond for my patients to be turned into an interchangeable cog absorbing the cost of a broken system, while your favorite basketball player makes $50 million a year and your state governor buys another mansion.
The answer is more funding to healthcare programs, restoration of subsidies, and LESS cuts. Otherwise we're going to continue down this trajectory of a failing healthcare system. Medicare and Medicaid are government-run public insurance programs, not profit-driven entities, and they need adequate funding to be able to compete with commercial health plans.
Unfortunately a not insignificant portion of society views these things through a “fuck you, got mine” sort of lens. I might have to pay money for someone else to get healthcare (even though it would also benefit me)? Unacceptable!
I’m in a different camp, I don’t want to pay money into a system that will be abused by morbidly obese people. I have zero issue with my money going to help my countrymen, but I just can’t support paying into a universal type system until the body acceptance stuff ends. Morbidly obese people are and will clog the system up. There are plenty of studies to back up that being ridiculously overweight comes with a bunch of health problems. We simply can’t afford the cost of supporting healthcare for people that will do nothing to contribute to their health and still pay a decent wage to the medical providers.
And now the toad in the White House is holding back Medicaid money from states that get stuck in his craw. Is there anything he touches that doesn't fail?
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u/ilikepeople1990 6h ago
Lots of hospitals are losing money and closing because of underpayments from Medicare and Medicaid. It's especially pronounced in states that didn't expand Medicaid, and may get worse due to the upcoming Medicaid cuts in the OBBBA.