A Guest Article by my DH:
So you think ObamaCare may be a disaster in a few years? A real disaster looms in 3 months, not 3 years, when Medicare cuts the payment rates to doctors and physicians by 21% on January 1, 2010. The 21% cut in Medicare reimbursements mandated by Congress, and the similar cuts in commercial insurance reimbursements that would certainly follow, will be disastrous. Congress continues to embrace the delusion that physicians and hospitals can magically find some way to make up for a 21% cut in payments when even now hospitals lose money on every Medicare patient they treat and doctors break even at best.
If Medicare reimbursements are cut by 21% on January 1, 2010; on January 2 in order to avoid bankruptcy most physicians are going to be forced to decline to see any new Medicare patients; because from January 2 forward every single Medicare patient will cost doctors and hospitals far more than they can be paid for taking care of them. How long could any business remain open selling its products or services for considerably less than it paid for them? I honestly don't think that Congress has any appreciation of the magnitude of the crisis that looms. Medicare will implode three months from now because of their failure to act rather than five years from now because of the healthcare bill that the majority party is trying to push through Congress.
If Medicare reimbursements are cut by 21% on January 1, 2010; on January 2 in order to avoid bankruptcy most physicians are going to be forced to decline to see any new Medicare patients; because from January 2 forward every single Medicare patient will cost doctors and hospitals far more than they can be paid for taking care of them. How long could any business remain open selling its products or services for considerably less than it paid for them? I honestly don't think that Congress has any appreciation of the magnitude of the crisis that looms. Medicare will implode three months from now because of their failure to act rather than five years from now because of the healthcare bill that the majority party is trying to push through Congress.
It is unfortunate, and in my opinion unconscionable, that Congress would make promises to seniors it has no intention of fulfilling and rather than face the inconvenience of raising taxes or cutting other expenditures has instead passed the cost of that program on to physicians and hospitals via reimbursements that at best barely cover their overhead. Tyranny of the majority is tyranny nonetheless.
Congress has just over a month to fix this, or at the very least kick the problem one more year down the road as they have for the last several years. If they do not do so, on January second Medicare patients will find it very nearly impossible to find a doctor. Initially they will blame physicians but ultimately they will, quite appropriately, blame Congress.
