The state of California has decided to slash Medicaid payments to physicians by more than $50 million. AMNews reports that Dr. Richard Frankenstein, President of the California Medical Association (CMA), thinks the state has created a monster:

Cutting funding for health services, particularly when it costs California valuable federal matching funds, is neither humane nor financially sound.

He’s right, of course. The cuts are indeed inhumane because they will reduce primary care access for California’s poorest patients:

A 2001 California HealthCare Foundation survey found that 55% of primary care doctors and 50% of specialists accept Medicaid patients. The new Medicaid cuts mean these numbers will decline further.

And they are fiscally irresponsible because these patients will have to avail themselves of the more expensive ER alternative:

More program enrollees will wind up in the emergency department because they could not get primary care … They’re going to end up going to the hospital at the last minute and getting very expensive care.

The CMA plans to fight the cuts. It’s probably an exercise in futility, but Dr. Frankenstein hopes to stitch together a compromise:

We absolutely do not think this is set in stone, and we are exploring our options about what we can do to turn it around.

This is what always happens when government controls the health care purse strings. Arbitrary funding cuts are a way of life.

Government-run health care is an unholy monster, cobbled together from the corpses of failed Lefty ideas. It needs to be destroyed once and for all.