high cost of medicaid

I know the old saying is, “Never look a gift horse in the mouth.” But even a glimpse reveals a lot. The day after Christmas our 2-year-old granddaughter in Michigan was bitten by the family’s orneriest cat.. (The cat is no longer there.) Her father wiped away her tears, wrapped a Band-Aid around the ouchy and put her to bed for the night. The next morning she woke up with a fiercely swollen purple finger.
We were already on our way to visit. As we covered the last few miles to my husband’s old stomping grounds, they headed for the emergency room where doctors prescribed intravenous antibiotics and checked her in the pediatric ward for treatment. Due to the family’s financial circumstances, her medical expenses wee covered by Medicaid.
When we visited the hospital she was perched like a princess in her hospital bed with both hands wrapped in Ace bandages. The left hand to protect the wound. The right stiffened with a board that stabilized her IV. She waved her bandaged arms in greeting.
The Ace bandage slid down off her ‘ouchy.” As the nurse re-bandaged it, I didn’t get very close. I didn’t need more than a glimpse to see the tiny purplish finger and know that something was really wrong. Throughout the re-wrapping the little one liberally protested all that free medical care. While older and wiser eyes saw intent of the healer’s actions, she screamed, not in pain, but in fear of what the uniformed ones might do. She did not quiet until the healer departed.
The next morning when we called to see how she was doing, she was in surgery to relieve the pressure of the infection swelling on her finger. All told she spent two weeks in the hospital, her movements restricted by the all important intravenous antibiotics.
Her father said if her medical care had not been provided by Medicaid, she might have gone home with an IV and home nursing care. However, Medicaid does not fund home health care visits to check IVs. He was told that Medicaid only pays for the administration of IVs in the hospital.
So in the hospital she stayed whether she liked it , or needed it, wanted it or not. And she did not like it. As the rest of the family prepared to go home one evening, she wistfully said, “I wanna go home, too.” But she couldn’t, not until she no longer needed the IV.
Without governmental provision, the child’s health and the family’s precarious finances would have been severely threatened. Yet, I wonder about the financial wisdom, let aloe the compassion, of only agreeing to provide the necessary treatment at the hospital. That’s where I want to look the gift horse called Medicaid in the mouth. Surely paying one nurse to stop by their apartment a couple times a day to check the IV would have been far less expensive than the daily cost of a hospital bed?
I am sure the ruling the governmental agencies have their reasons. Reasons that make sense even if they cost plenty of taxpayer’s dollars and cents. I don’t live close to the situation, but sometimes a glimpse is enough to reveal that something is very wrong.