Argument Against Medicaid

Medicaid, which is a state and federal funded program, provides health coverage to millions of Americans nationwide. Eligible recipients include low-income adults, children, pregnant women, elderly adults and people with disabilities. In the state of Michigan, there were 2,920,176 recipients who received Medicaid benefits in 2017 (State of Michigan, 2018). Although so many participants rely on Medicaid for health insurance, many of them are tremendously dissatisfied with the quality of health care themselves or their children receive. The reality is, many of the providers that do accept Medicaid patients, do not treat them with the same level of care as patients with private insurance. Many doctors today discriminate against Medicaid insured patients. Authors Chris C. Duke and Christine Stanik for HealthAffairs.com and Right Place, Right Time, delved into this issue back in 2016, interviewing numerous Medicaid participants for their research. According to (Stanik, 2016), “Lower-income participants gave examples of a lack of trust and respect, including providers avoiding eye contact, speaking condescendingly, showing physical disgust when touching patients, brushing off patient concerns and symptoms, and ignoring adverse events that patients reported from prescribed treatments.”. I …show more content…
This is one deterrent for physicians to provide quality medical care for patients with Medicaid. The more time spent on patients with Medicaid, less money they make. Medicaid frequently requires prior authorizations as well for certain diagnostic procedures, surgeries and medications. This too, can become time consuming and frustrating for the physician since they have to fill out the proper paperwork. With that being said, at the end of the day, a physician should be practicing medicine because they believe in helping people. This should not be about their