Obamacare will be partially paid for by cuts in compensation to doctors and hospitals–already being short-shrifted by Medicare. It will also seek to control rates of compensation from Obamacare Central. That may or may not cut costs, but it will result in fewer physicians participating in the system, meaning patients will receive less care.
Reduced compensation will result in physicians restricting their practices to private pay, many will retire rather than work harder for less money, facilities will short staff–you get the idea. A glimpse of that unfortunate future was provided when the Mayo Clinic’s facility in Arizona announced it was restricting its treatment of Medicare patients. From the story:
The Mayo Clinic, praised by President Barack Obama as a national model for efficient health care, will stop accepting Medicare patients as of tomorrow at one of its primary-care clinics in Arizona, saying the U.S. government pays too little. More than 3,000 patients eligible for Medicare, the government’s largest health-insurance program, will be forced to pay cash if they want to continue seeing their doctors at a Mayo family clinic in Glendale, northwest of Phoenix, said Michael Yardley, a Mayo spokesman. The decision, which Yardley called a two-year pilot project, won’t affect other Mayo facilities in Arizona, Florida and Minnesota….
Mayo’s move to drop Medicare patients may be copied by family doctors, some of whom have stopped accepting new patients from the program, said Lori Heim, president of the American Academy of Family Physicians, in a telephone interview yesterday. “Many physicians have said, ‘I simply cannot afford to keep taking care of Medicare patients,’” said Heim, a family doctor who practices in Laurinburg, North Carolina. “If you truly know your business costs and you are losing money, it doesn’t make sense to do more of it.”
The response of centralized controllers–in the future, if not now–will probably be to try and require facilities to take these patients. But, you can’t force people to work. The Obamacare “cure” is worse than our current systemic dysfunction disease.
We are being warned.
January 1st, 2010 | 12:22 pm
“Obamacare will be partially paid for by cuts in compensation to doctors and hospitals–already being short-shrifted by Medicare.”
Bingo. Now, what happens when these doctors stop seeing Medicare eligible patients? A crisis more hideous than the one we already have. And, what happens to the individual who can’t afford the forced rip-off… er, coverage? Fines? Swell. That will solve lots of health-related problems and promote good health across the land.
I consider it sticking a machete into a paper-cut.
This whole thing is such a flagrant money and power grab and has nothing to do with wellness. It’s embarrassing. It’s troubling.
January 1st, 2010 | 12:23 pm
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Vince Humphreys, Wesley J. Smith. Wesley J. Smith said: Obamacare: Stormwarning–Cuts in Medicare Will Equal Less Access » Secondhand Smoke | A First Things Blog – http://shar.es/aUm4Q [...]
January 1st, 2010 | 1:16 pm
The folks in government already have a model for dealing with physicians who refuse to participate with Medicare once reimbursements drop — they will simply mandate that participation is a requirement for licensure. That’s the way it works in Massachussetts, and there is no reason to believe that it will not become yet another onerous mandate under Obamacare.
January 1st, 2010 | 10:20 pm
Oh, I don’t believe they can’t force people to work.
Links
Blogs
Find Us
Contact