Here’s a fun fact: for every increase of 1 percentage point in the national unemployment rate, it is estimated that an additional 1 million Americans turn to Medicaid for coverage and another 1.1 million go uninsured. As this economy continues to take its toll on the crippled state of the heatlhcare delivery system, financing care for those who qualify for it is becoming more and more of a challenge. Much has been said of the increasingly frayed “safety net” of Medicaid access to qualifying beneficiaries. Without individual state funds to shoulder healthcare and preventive medical programs, costs to provide care increase with the utilization of resources already strained to the limit (ie, the hospital emergency department).

With repsect to Medicaid coverage, the relaxation on absolute restrictions to the access of publicly covered services engineered by the Obama administration (increased CHIP funding passed by Congress earlier this year and an increase in federal Medicaid infusions as a result of the recent economic stimulus) has created an influx of beneficiaries previously inelegible for coverage, saving states’ spending clampdowns and increasing the availability of federal funds to grow healthcare access. Restricted access to Medicaid funded services only increases the burden acute care entities must absorb or write off in the form of spending waste for those who cannot afford primary care. Here’s to a solid and pragmatic Obama healthcare administrative step in the right direction.

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