Professionalism and Caring for Medicaid Patients - The 5% Commitment?

Refusing to care for poor, vulnerable patients seems incompatible with the core professional principle that physicians should put the patient's interest first. Could we ask all physicians to commit to including at least 5% Medicaid enrollees among their patients? Medicaid is an important federal-state partnership that provides health insurance for more than one fifth of the U.S. population 73 million low-income people in 2012. The Affordable Care Act will expand Medicaid coverage to millions more. But 30% of office-based physicians do not accept new Medicaid patients, and in some specialties, the rate of nonacceptance is much higher for example, 40% in orthopedics, 44% in general internal medicine, 45% in dermatology, and 56% in psychiatry.(1) Physicians practicing in higher-income areas are less likely to accept new Medicaid patients.(2) Physicians who do accept new Medicaid patients may use various ...