Docs and Hospitals, Get on Board (Everyone wins if Medicaid car is improved)

In January, we appauled Illinois lawmakers for finally passing a serious Medicaid reform bill. The state's ambitious goal: Move half of Illinois' 2.6 million Medicaid patients - that's 1 of every 5 Illinoisans into managed care by 2015. The overarching strategy is to improve health care for millions of Medicaid patients and save the state tens of millions of dollars.

As the Tribune's reported Judith Graham discovered last week, the state is pushing to enroll people in serious physical and mental disabilities in two private, HMO-style plans - Aetna Better Health and IlliniCare Health Plan.

But many doctors and hospitals have refused to join the new managed care program. The hospitals listed by Graham include Northwestern Memorial Hospital, Rush University Medical Center, the University of Chicago Medical Center, Children's Memorial Hospital and Loyola University Health System. Many of these elite hospitals and physician groups are still negotiating terms and rates so all of this could/should change.

For the time being however, those hospital and doctor refusals are forcing hundreds if not thousands of poor, chronically ill patients who had been relying on them to find new doctors and make new health care arrangements.

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