DES MOINES – Governor Branstad said today that data shows Medicaid patients have more choice, access, and accountability than ever before.
Today, Gov. Terry E. Branstad and Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds released new data showing Iowa’s Medicaid patients have it better under “Medicaid Modernization” than ever before in the past. Medicaid Modernization (many call it privatization) was officially launched on April 1, 2016. Branstad said patients have more choice than ever before fitting their individual needs, more access to services including twice as many doctors and nurses, and real accountability that will improve the health of more than 500,000 Iowans.
As 39 other states and the District of Columbia have done, Iowa is leveraging its own 30 years of Medicaid managed care experience and utilizing nationally-experienced health plans to coordinate care making Medicaid patients healthier and fitting individual needs.
According to claims by the Governor, the health plans have built robust provider networks giving patients more choice than ever before to fit the individual patient. Patients also have better access to services with twice the number of doctors and nurses available to them in Medicaid Modernization than compared to Old Medicaid. Medicaid Modernization has brought real accountability to the Medicaid program tracking nearly 1,000 patient health outcomes – something “Old Medicaid” never did.
4 thoughts on “Branstad releases new data on Medicaid privatization, paints rosy picture of transition”
And if you believe this……….. Terry’s got a slaughter house he’d like to bring to your community
If you noticed, however, he says nothing about how the providers of care are being treated by the 3 ‘owners’ of the plan (they are treated poorly and paid sporadically-if at all), and despite all these choices, how is the actual care of these patients. Those are the things he won’t talk about and refuses to acknowledge. The plan isn’t working.
How do you know that? Do you have proof or are you just listening to the haters?
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/health/2016/07/17/medicaid-managers-slow-pay-bills-agencies-say/87036754/
http://www.thegazette.com/subject/news/health/survey-iowa-medicaid-providers-not-getting-paid-on-time-running-into-billing-issues-20160725
In addition to these 2 articles, I have friends who have children who were covered by the previous plan, and now, although covered, the services have been moved to a town 95 miles away. So, 3 times a week, they have to drive 190 miles to receive the same services when they previously drove 15 miles a week. Somebody is making big profits off of this.