The number of Texans who lack health insurance is the biggest challenge hospitals face, health care system executives said at a recent panel discussion.
"It's a fundamental challenge for every hospital in Texas," Stephen Mansfield, president and CEO of Dallas-based Methodist Health System, said at a Dallas Business Journal roundtable.
Ultimately, employers are picking up most of the cost for the care of the uninsured, because hospitals shift those costs to those who do have insurance, said Joel Allison, president and CEO of Dallas-based Baylor Health Care System....
Stephen Mansfield, president and CEO of Dallas-based Methodist Health System, said Texas' number of uninsured is the state's biggest health system challenge.
...Texas continued to have the highest rate of people without health insurance in 2012 at 24.6 percent, according to the estimates released last week by the U.S. Census Bureau. The bureau's Current Population Survey indicated that the national uninsured rate declined in 2012, to 15.4 percent from 15.7 percent in 2011.
Overall, 48 million Americans, including more than 6 million Texans, were uninsured in both 2011 and 2012....
Now, Senator Cornyn needs to ask himself how any COST CONTAINMENT is going to happen in health care if the nation is not insured. As long as the uninsured continue to add costs that most American should not have to pay cost containment cannot happen. Why?
Because the Republicans have measures that enforce profound poverty without a chance at upward movement and LOCKS the health care system in the USA into adding costs to the bill of others in order to survive.
I thought the Republicans wanted the best health care in the world. If they do, under these circumstances, then it is a direct assault on the "ethics of medicine' as less and less will be able to access health care as one hospital after another will close as they can't pay their bills.
One of the complaints about the Affordable Care Act is the surge of patients it will propagate in 2014 putting stress on the American Primary Physician capacity. The Affordable Care Act provides for these reality while building a bigger and better number of Primary Care Physicians in the future.
January 4, 2011
...Starting in 2011, (click here) as many as 10 million Medicaid patients who have at least one chronic condition could have a “health home” to help them manage their condition. An estimated 8 million newly eligible Medicaid beneficiaries with at least one chronic condition could have a health home by 2014.
A 10 percent bonus will be paid to primary care practitioners who see Medicare patients (2011–2015).
Payment rates for primary care physicians who see Medicaid patients will be increased to Medicare levels for two years (2013–2014).
The Affordable Care Act and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (the so-called stimulus package) will together support the training of more than 16,000 new primary care providers over the next five years.
The capacity of community health centers will double, serving 15 million to 20 million more people by 2015, to help meet the demand of the newly insured....
