SC Medicaid "Personal Accounts" Plan will Leave Providers Paying

The Savannah Business Report & Journal has a pretty good article about how hospitals in South Carolina are worried that the state's plan for "personal accounts" for medicaid will leave people with no way to pay for care when their accounts run out. The article focuses on the burden this places on providers:

... the State would cap the amount each patient had to spend based on factors such as age, sex, physical condition and health history. If patients run out of money, they must pay out of their own pockets or forego treatment.

Health-care providers in the Palmetto State are crying foul, saying the change would leave many patients without preventive care and force hospitals, which are obligated to provide care whether a patient is insured or not, to foot the bill,
...
'We're willing to support the State in trying to look at providing Medicaid services to these clients, but if and when their maximum amount runs out, they could use those visits and they'll be done in six months,' Gardner said. 'Then we'll continue to treat them and we will bear the brunt of the costs

And this of course will end up costing more in the long run, like most short-sighted "reform" proposals:

But the new system would wind up costing taxpayers more than it saves when Medicaid patients whose accounts have been depleted wind up in the emergency room, Gardner said.

"We can provide more reasonable care on an outpatient basis," Gardner said. "The additional chronically ill patients, if we can't see them on an outpatient basis, they're going to wind up in the hospital anyway."

Dr. Francis Rushton, a physician at Beaufort Pediatrics, said it is important that patients, especially children, have access to primary and preventive care.

"It will end up costing state Medicaid programs less money," Rushton said.

What the article totally misses is the cost, financial and HUMAN, of people choosing between the ER not getting care at all. Sure, it's terrible that the providers, and ultimately the state, will end up paying more for care for those who go to the ER, but what about those who forgo care? Sick kids who miss school? Parents who miss work because they're sick or because their kids are sick? Simple pain and suffering of an untreated wound or infection? AND the fact that untreated illnesses SPREAD.
And even for those who do go to the ER - the only place anyone will treat them without insurance - they miss a whole or half day of work, they are unlikely to get needed follow-up care, AND they will be hounded by collection agencies until their wages are garnished unless they can qualify for bankruptcy.

This is truly becoming more like - or worse than - the third world in terms of healtcare.