Many years ago, I was involved in healthcare management. Both of the major medical centers that I worked for had more than their share of medicaid patients. Since the care was "free", it held no value for many of these people and they missed appointments nearly 40% of the time at our urban clinics. As such, we typically over-booked the primary care clinics by 15%, so that a physician was scheduled to see 29 patients during a seven hour clinic, assuming that he would actually see 25.
Interestingly, rural medicaid patients were much more likely to make their appointments or, if they couldn't, they would usually call, apologize for disrupting our schedule, and reschedule.
Entitlement is a dangerous slippery slope. While a little is good, the line between a little and too much isn't well defined and entitlement is highly addictive.
