As ObamaCare Brings Patients, Doctors Not Warm To Medicaid
Less than half of doctors are accepting patients insured by Medicaid programs for the poor, according to a study of appointments for common specialties in 15 major U.S. cities.

The survey, by physician staffing and consulting firm Merritt Hawkins showed just 45.7 percent Medicaid acceptance as the Affordable Care Act provides a cash infusion of more than $900 billion in federal dollars from this year to 2022 to expand Medicaid programs for states interested in the proposition. There are, however, about two dozen states, with Republican governors or GOP legislatures opposed to the expansion that have turned down the federal dollars.

There is also separate federal funding to raise Medicaid payments for primary care doctors to the level of payments from the Medicare health insurance program for the elderly through this year. That means an average pay increase of 73 percent for eligible primary care doctors.

It’s unclear exactly how many more doctors will see Medicaid patients under the enhanced payments, but Merritt Hawkins Hawkins analysts, citing their study, don’t see Medicaid acceptance changing much in part because more people will have private coverage, which generally pays doctors more than Medicaid or Medicare.

“Medicaid is the worst and Medicare is not much better and neither are as good as commercial insurance,” said Travis Singleton, senior vice president at Merritt Hawkins, a subsidiary of AMN Healthcare (AMN).

Doctors, Singleton said, will “cherry pick” patients depending on what insurance they have.

“To think physicians are going to change their tune and start accepting patients,” Singleton said. “It’s unlikely to happen.”

The Medicaid acceptance trend indicates it will take a lot to get doctors to open their doors to Medicaid patients.

The average rate of acceptance among family physicians, dermatologists, cardiologists, orthopedic surgeons and obstetrician/gynecologists in all 15 markets surveyed was 45.7 percent last year, according to data gathered from nearly 1,400 medical offices last year.

The 2014 survey showed a drop from 55.4 percent acceptance in 2009, Merritt Hawkins said. In 2004, 49.9 percent of doctors surveyed accepted Medicaid patients.

If Medicaid acceptance doesn’t improve, it could impact choices of doctors for health plans that contract with the program. Major health insurance companies like Aetna Aetna (AET), Humana Humana (HUM), Centene (CNC), Wellpoint (WLP) and several Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans contract with states and the federal government to provide health benefits to Medicaid patients.
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&nbsp; Less than half of doctors are accepting patients insured by Medicaid programs for the poor, according to a study of appointments for common specialties in 15 major U.S. cities. The survey, by physician staffing and consulting firm Merritt Hawkins showed just 45.7 percent Medicaid acceptance as the Affordable Care Act provides a cash [...]

Q: Keeping College Students From the Polls

Next fall, thousands of students on college campuses will attempt to register to vote and be turned away. Sorry, they will hear, you have an out-of-state driver’s license. Sorry, your college ID is not valid here. Sorry, we found out that you paid out-of-state tuition, so even though you do have a state driver’s license, you still can’t vote.

Political leaders should be encouraging young adults to participate in civic life, but many Republican state lawmakers are doing everything they can instead to prevent students from voting in the 2012 presidential election. Some have openly acknowledged doing so because students tend to be liberal.

Seven states have already passed strict laws requiring a government-issued ID (like a driver’s license or a passport) to vote, which many students don’t have, and 27 others are considering such measures. Many of those laws have been interpreted as prohibiting out-of-state driver’s licenses from being used for voting.

It’s all part of a widespread Republican effort to restrict the voting rights of demographic groups that tend to vote Democratic. Blacks, Hispanics, the poor and the young, who are more likely to support President Obama, are disproportionately represented in the 21 million people without government IDs. On Friday, the Justice Department, finally taking action against these abuses, blocked the new voter ID law in South Carolina.

Republicans usually don’t want to acknowledge that their purpose is to turn away voters, especially when race is involved, so they invented an explanation, claiming that stricter ID laws are necessary to prevent voter fraud. In fact, there is almost no voter fraud in America to prevent.

William O’Brien, the speaker of the New Hampshire State House, told a Tea Party group earlier this year that students are “foolish” and tend to “vote their feelings” because they lack life experience. “Voting as a liberal,” he said, “that’s what kids do.” And that’s why, he said, he supported measures to prohibit students from voting from their college addresses and to end same-day registration. New Hampshire Republicans even tried to pass a bill that would have kept students who previously lived elsewhere from voting in the state; fortunately, the measure failed, as did the others Mr. O’Brien favored.

Many students have taken advantage of Election Day registration laws, which is one reason Maine Republicans passed a law eliminating the practice. Voters restored it last month, but Republican lawmakers there are already trying new ways to restrict voting. The secretary of state said he was investigating students who are registered to vote in the state but pay out-of-state tuition.

Wisconsin once made it easy for students to vote, making it one of the leading states in turnout of younger voters in 2004 and 2008. When Republicans swept into power there last year, they undid all of that, imposing requirements that invalidated the use of virtually all college ID cards in voter registration. Colleges are scrambling to change their cards to add signatures and expiration dates, but it’s not clear whether the state will let them.

Imposing these restrictions to win an election will embitter a generation of students in its first encounter with the machinery of democracy.
What are the most important parts of this text?

A: To limit Democratic turnout on Election Day, Republican lawmakers are making it harder for students and other liberal-leaning groups to vote.

What If Michael Bay Directed

Michael Bay and HBO’s Girls are about as dissimilar and themes as two entertainment brands can be. The director shoots for high-concept flicks with outlandish stunts and insane plots, while Lena Dunham’s show aims for low-key characterization and development. Whenever the two collided in a mash-up, real or otherwise, one’s sensibilities would be crushed for comedic effect, skewering the other.

This is exactly what happened when YouTuber Alberto Belli released the video “What if Michael Bay directed HBO’s ‘Girls’ ” on Wednesday. Hannah, Marnie, Jessa, and Shoshanna are all shown in the parody, accompanied by regular barbs about their body and attractiveness. To make it a genuine Bay parody, oversaturated scenes, jets, and—naturally—explosions appear.

This article originally appeared on EW.com

Summary:
Oversaturated scenes, jets and — naturally — explosions