West Virgina Medicaid Initiative: Policy Meets Practicalities

David Harlow's HealthBlawg provides very interesting commentary on West Virginia's Medicaid Redesign efforts to implement change to the West Virginia Medicaid program, including pointing out a New England Journal of Medicine article, Personal Responsibility and Physician Responsibility - West Virginia's Medicaid Plan.

The article examines the practical realities of implementing a Medicaid plan that includes implementing consumer driven and patient responsibility components into a program that serves the most vulnerable sector of the West Virginia health care population -- the poor, uneducated, young/aged health consumer. West Virginacategory. The article also raises interesting questions about the role physicians play in the redesigned program and the fact that physicians will be faced with policy and ethical issues under the program changes.