Support House Medicaid plan
Published July 22, 2014
by Dr, Conrad Flick, published in News and Observer, July 22, 2014.
I am a family physician who has practiced full time in Wake County for over 20 years. Over the past 16 months, a tremendous amount of hard work has gone into a Medicaid reform plan that is good for taxpayers, patients and providers.
The state House of Representatives unanimously passed a reform plan that continues to be supported by physicians, hospitals and the governor’s administration. Despite this consensus and compromise, the Senate has chosen to move forward with its own proposal.
The Senate’s latest budget and its specific plan for Medicaid will turn North Carolina’s Medicaid program over to out-of-state corporate managed care, siphoning scarce dollars away from actually caring for the people of our state. The proposal will likely also bury independent physician practices under a mountain of administrative and regulatory burdens.
The plan creates a new bureaucracy and specifically excludes physicians from participating in the oversight and development of the program. Family physicians recognize reform is needed and have worked and will work tirelessly to find a solution that works for everyone: taxpayers, patients and providers. The Senate’s plan disregards these efforts and destroys the consensus we all have worked so hard to build.
CONRAD L. FLICK, RALEIGH
