What is interesting is that the doctors are not making any more money per medicare (and medicaid and private insurance) patient for the past 5+ years. The system caps what can be charged for patients with third party coverage. The only thing that can be done by the doctor is to raise the fees for the non-insured patient to combat inflation. I know this as I am in primary care.
Yet health care cost continue to rise. Insurance companies continue to build skyscrapers Ambulance chasers are doing fine.
Yet another thing is happening insurance companies are quickly getting out of the health care business. Unicare, a rather large player has sold their accounts to Blue cross. I think that they see the writing on the wall.
The government forces health care companies to take on a lot of patients who otherwise can not get care. Patients which need large amounts of care. One scenario that I see is that the government lets them go bankrupt and then will pick up the pieces to start their single payer system. Obama originally wanted to have a single payer system but the politics were not right for it. He will have it once costs go through the roof.
Exactly! Both sides also failed to pass the SGR repeal that went before congress a couple of months ago. Both of our senators from Mississippi, Roger Wicker and Thad Cochran, voted against the SGR repeal that would have helped towards lowering costs.
What we, as physicians, are going to have to do is to simply stop taking medicare and medicaid. Yes, it is a difficult decision to make, but physicians are going to have to pull together and take a tough, hardnosed stance against this. The dentists did this in the 70s when they tried this crap on them.
I don't have a problem with medicare itself. I think its intent was good. The implementation of it has been what is wrong. It should have never been in the government's hands to begin with. IMO, it should be reserved for those that have worked and paid into the program, but the money paid in should go into a health savings account for the person paying it. The government should take its hands completely out of it and do away with the medicare regulations and payment standards. CMS should be abolished. The same thing should happen to social security. The federal government should in no way have access to this money to spend on other things.
Tort reform needs to be done to protect physicians from frivilous lawsuits. The federal regulations of the insurance industry should be abolished and left up to each state, opening a pathway for portability across state lines.
