Re: Reid hopes recess heat will change Medicare votes

On Mon, 30 Jun 2008 09:14:29 -0400, Thumper wrote:

On Mon, 30 Jun 2008 07:52:26 -0500, Glenn <minorgo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

On Mon, 30 Jun 2008 07:26:45 -0400, Jim Higgins wrote:

Reid hopes recess heat will change Medicare votes
http://tinyurl.com/4osseq


. . .


Some lawmakers have warned that doctors will immediately start dropping
Medicare patients next week, rather than see a 10.6 percent cut in the
fees they receive. But it seems clear that Reid intends to find a way
to push the bill through and achieve at least the 60 vote threshold
needed to clear the Senate.

Did the doctors happen to say how much they need to live on? Did the
clinics plan to drop the advantage plans? What is the range of the
percentage of Medicare to private insurance patients. Perhaps those that
plan to drop Medicare can't meet their liability insurance premiums.
Maybe the should make better use of nurse practitioners, or is it only
the clinics that do that. Perhaps they can't get work with the VA. They
seem more like spoiled children than adults that want to work together to
solve a problem.


My doctor told me today that he is going out of business and taking a
position at the local hospital. He said that he can't keep up with all
the paper work for the various insurance companies. Also I asked him
about medicare and he said that in Massachusetts re-imbursements are
already too low. Those that have the right kind of practice already have
stopped taking medicare patients.

That's interesting but it doesn't shed any light on the problem of
allocating Medicare funds. Assuming the surgeons aren't complaining, it's
the AMA that has the data and they aren't cooperating, only whining.

--
Glenn

.

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