You may be interested to know that a 21% rate cut scheduled for doctors who treat Medicare patients will be wiped away if legislation in the Senate is passed. Instead of the rate cut, doctors would have a more predictable fee increase schedule; the legislation would cost $247 billion. What could this possibly be for? Surely not the democrats “paying off” in effect the American Medical Association so that they will support Obamacare.
Nevada Senator Harry Reid met with the AMA last week and you can only speculate what kind of arm twisting was going on there. This is from an AP story:
Yet the AMA won’t yet pledge support for the major health care bill that is the chief objective of the White House and congressional Democrats, despite a request that several officials say was made at a meeting last week with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.
Seems to me like the AMA wants a little more than stopping the rate cut; the president of the AMA said that they’re looking for significant medical liability reform as well. That poses a problem for the democrats on a number of levels. Not the least of which is keeping the trial lawyer’s happy.
Obama definitely needs the AMA to get healthcare done. Don’t be surprised to see some sort of “token” medical liability reform pop up in the near future.
October 20th, 2009 at 4:27 pm
On top of a mandated 21.5 percent Medicare cut that all physicians face in 2010, some specialists face an additional 11-15 percent cut in Medicare reimbursement in 2010 due to the use of flawed data.
Congress has been playing games with physicians for years always threatening to allow draconian cuts in Medicare reimbursement only to come in at the last minute and “save” physicians by cancelling the devastating cuts (while effectively negating any chance of meaningful and needed increases in reimbursement). Meanwhile the cost of practicing continues to increase due to ever increasing regulation. Physicians understand that all segments of the economy are hurting but at some point they will be losing money seeing Medicare patients. A reasonable increase in reimbursement is needed. However this correction of the Medicare payment system and Medical liability reform should not be used as bribes for physician support of the government sponsored healthcare program. That is politics at it’s worst.
How does this effect the patient? It will be harder for them to find doctors that will accept new Medicare patients. A 2008 survey by the Texas Medical Association found that while 58 percent of the state’s doctors took new Medicare patients, only 38 percent of primary care doctors did.