“States fear that five words in Obama health law will open door to lawsuits”

“Tucked away on page 466” is a provision that quietly replaces states’ obligation to make sure doctors are paid to deliver services to the poor with a new obligation to make sure the services are in fact delivered. “‘With the expanded definition, it leaves every state vulnerable to a new wave of lawsuits any time someone cannot access a service, even if that service is limited by virtue of the rates we pay,’ said Alan Levine, Louisiana’s secretary of health and hospitals, in a recent memo prepared for fellow state government officials.” [Jon Ward, Daily Caller]

4 Comments

  • “States fear that five words in Obama health law will open door to lawsuits”…

    “Tucked away on page 466” is a provision that quietly replaces states’ obligation to make sure doctors are paid to deliver services to the poor with a new obligation to make sure the services are in fact delivered. “‘With the……

  • Is this by error or design? The trial lawyers groups seemed to be in favor of this fustercluck of a bill. I wonder if there are any more legal booby traps in there?

  • Maybe the intention of this is to be a backdoor way of forcing the states to increase their Medicaid reimbursement rates to physicians, while ensuring that the additional cost doesn’t show up on the federal government’s books.

  • Unless the federal government conscripts physicians there soon won’t enough of doctors to treat the nation’s Medicaid and Medicare patients.

    Which may have been the plan all along.