Law of Economics Plays Havoc With State’s Medi-Cal Program
- Share via
The Times certainly has a hard time understanding doctors. In the same issue, you print Art Silk’s eloquent letter explaining the profession’s feelings about the physician discipline problem (“Misdiagnosing a Quackery Cure,” July 29) and a dumb editorial that says that it is “shameful” for doctors and hospitals to limit their losses in treating Medi-Cal patients.
Dr. Silk always says it better than I could, but let me try. We are not unwilling to treat the poor, and most of us do. Before Medi-Cal, the poor received good medical care in doctors’ offices and the county hospitals, plus those nonprofit hospitals which had received federal Hill-Burton funds for construction. For-profit hospitals are not obligated to care for the poor, but most do so anyway.
A direct result of the Medi-Cal program was the starving and, in Orange County, the closing of county hospitals. The poor were supposed to receive “mainstream care,” and so the county hospital wasn’t needed.
As usual, the promise hasn’t been kept. The program (at least the benefits part) is underfunded, the arrogant bureaucracy is bloated and the providers (doctors and hospitals) are treated like felons.
Recently a patient was referred to me for major vascular surgery. She is on Medi-Cal because of total disability. I accepted her as a patient even after my office told me that they had been trying for three years to obtain payment from Medi-Cal for a previous operation (same operation, other side) on this patient.
Will I ever be paid? Who knows? Will I let the world know that I will take all comers and treat them all for nothing? Not on your life!
Most internists and GPs in my area don’t even bill Medi-Cal for office visits because it costs more to collect than the state will pay for the service. That is what is “shameful!”
Can you really blame them for not advertising the fact that they all take care of some of these patients for no charge? We who practice in affluent areas pity our colleagues who must depend on Medi-Cal for a large share of their practice.
The Times would do better to study the real problems with the Medi-Cal program and to try to understand that the laws of economics apply to medicine too.
DR. MICHAEL T. KENNEDY
Past President
Orange County Medical Assn.
Mission Viejo
Get the L.A. Times Politics newsletter
Deeply reported insights into legislation, politics and policy from Sacramento, Washington and beyond. In your inbox twice per week.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
