Medi-Cal Cuts Will Exacerbate Health Care Crisis In California Health Care Providers Will Testify, USA

Main Category: Public Health
Article Date: 28 Jan 2008 - 3:00 PDT

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Doctors and other health care providers will testify before an Assembly subcommittee that the proposed 10% rate cuts will create more barriers for low income Californians to access health care and would force tens of thousands of patients to seek care at more expensive emergency rooms.

"Cutting the budget for Medi-Cal will only exacerbate the problems the Governor's health reform plan was designed to solve," said Richard Frankenstein, M.D., president of the California Medical Association. "Fewer Medi-Cal dollars will mean less access to doctors for low-income families, more patients in emergency rooms, and higher health care costs for everyone."

Steven Polansky, M.D., an Obstetrician-Gynecologist who treats Medi-Cal patients in Carmichael, will be among the many providers who will testify that Medi-Cal reimbursement rates are already too low to cover the cost of care, and further cuts will make it even more difficult to provide care.

Dr. Polansky will testify on behalf of the CMA, one of many organizations that makes up the Alliance for Patient Care. Further reductions will force doctors and other providers out of the Medi-Cal program, place increasing pressure on already financially strapped hospitals and could force clinics to close their doors.

Bridget Harrison, M.D., a resident in family practice in San Jose, also will speak against the cuts at today's hearing.

"Already, patients' demand for our clinic's services far outstrips our supply," Dr. Harrison will testify. "Our clinic opened just three years ago. Because there are few primary care physicians in our area who accept Medi-Cal, we are already full and have had to close our doors to new patients. We turn away new patients every week who come searching for a primary care provider who accepts Medi-Cal."

"We are constantly booked at least a month in advance, and our urgent care clinic is overfilled as well. This makes access to care difficult for our patients who need to be seen regularly for their chronic medical problems like diabetes and heart disease."

The proposed cuts, which slash $2 billion from the budget, disproportionately impact California's most vulnerable patients - seniors, those in foster care, the poor, disabled, and chronically ill - who are least able to access health care. Additionally, important services such as home health care and dental and eye care would be cut. Reductions in these services, particularly for chronically ill patients, will force many of these patients into long-term facilities and hospitals, where the care is even more expensive.

Despite continual increases in health care costs, rates paid to providers have not kept pace with the costs of providing care. Cuts of this magnitude have not been proposed in recent memory.

The California Medical Association represents 35,000 California physicians in all modes of practice and specialties.

The Alliance for Patient Care is a broad coalition of health care providers and patient groups that advocates for greater access to care for California's most vulnerable patients in the Medi-Cal and Healthy Families programs.

California Medical Association