IN providers protest Medicaid plan

In Indiana, doctors and hospitals are protesting a plan to transfer the state's Medicaid patients to three private insurers. Providers are vehemently resisting the change because the insurers have proposed a 30 percent cut to physician reimbursement for Medicare patients. Doctors and hospitals say that the steep cuts will force physicians to limit the number of Medicaid patients they treat, leaving a high number of indigent patients to receive expensive emergency care. Insurance company reps say that providers are overstating the impact of the proposed changes and that the cut in reimbursements is just a jumping-off point for contract negotiations. About 535,000 Indiana Medicaid patients are covered by the program.

For more on the debate:
- read this report [1] from the Indianapolis Star