Reid: Those tonsil vultures stole my vote

The Medicare payment system is a shell game. It is set up to reduce payment to providers every year. That makes the budget look better. Every year congress steps in to keep reimbursement the same or provide a small increase. The increases do not total enough over the years to even equal inflation much less other cost increases. Physicians are the only professional group that has been targeted by the federal government to take a pay cut every year. It is estimated that 40% of office overhead expenses are billing and collection. One of the most time consuming payers is Medicare.

Additionally the AMA was long ago co-opted by leftists, just as AARP was. They have their agenda and are more interested in their own power. They may count 20% of physicians as members, but they do not represent them. There are a number of physicians who belong because they have to, not because they want to.

Aviator on October 22, 2009 at 10:27 AM

A nice explaination of what “Cankles” Stabenow’s bill is really about put together by a physicain group that isn’t a shill like the AMA.

On Tuesday, October 13, Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) introduced S. 1776, the Medicare Physicians Fairness Act of 2009. This bill repeals the sustainable growth rate (SGR) formula, eliminates all accumulated SGR debt, and replaces the SGR with an indefinite payment freeze. The legislation — which costs about $240 billion — is not paid for and would add to the federal budget deficit. [Organization redacted] strongly supports repealing the flawed SGR payment formula and replacing it with a mechanism that will adequately reimburse physicians and recognize annual cost-of-living increases. Unfortunately, this bill does not accomplish this goal. [Organizations Redacted] are not supporting this bill for the following reasons:

The legislation merely freezes physician payments beginning in 2010 and all subsequent years — and a payment freeze is not a payment fix.
The bill does not outline the details of the payment system that will replace the SGR. Eliminating the SGR and wiping out the debt will pave the way for Congress to put in place a number of unacceptable reimbursement policies (many of which are included in the Senate Finance Committee’s healthcare reform bill), including:
Eliminating the fee-for-service system;
Mandatory pay-for performance;
Payment cuts to physicians who exceed resource use benchmarks;
Value indexing payments;
Mandatory accountable care organizations or other global payment systems;
Precertification requirements for surgical or other services;
Preferential payment for primary care; and,
Placing all these payment system decisions in the hands of a new Medicare Commission consisting of 15 unelected and largely unaccountable individuals.
As part of the discussions related to moving this legislation forward, Senate democratic leaders requested that physician organizations stop pressing for medical liability reform in conjunction with the larger healthcare reform effort and that they actively push for passage of health reform legislation.
The Senate may begin debate on S. 1776 as early as next Monday. Passage is not certain, as the bill needs to clear several procedural hurdles before the Senate votes on final passage. The House is also considering stripping SGR reform out of its healthcare overhaul legislation and addressing this in a separate bill as well.

Aviator on October 22, 2009 at 10:43 AM