Doctors urge Congress to halt Medicare pay cuts

[cal04]

Source: Reuters

The physician's group did an online survey of 1,000 Americans aged 18 and older and found 94 percent of them said they are concerned about the cuts to doctors who treat elderly patients.

The group released the findings at a meeting in San Diego to kick off a new advertising and lobbying push to convince lawmakers to block payment cuts -- set to take effect December 1 -- before they recess for the Thanksgiving holiday later this month.

"Congress must stop the cuts before seniors' healthcare is put in jeopardy," AMA President Dr. Cecil Wilson told reporters on a telephone briefing.

Wilson warned of a "catastrophe" if Congress does not act to block the payment cuts. He said many doctors will be forced to see fewer patients covered by the Medicare health insurance program for the elderly and disabled.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20101108/pl_nm/us_medicare_doctors

[DesertFlower]

1. i think the problem with health care including medicare is

the docs order too many tests. my doc retired and i have a new one. he suggested i get a chest x-ray. i said "no, i just had one last year".

that being said i think the docs are afraid if they don't order tests and something is wrong they'll be sued.

[Dappleganger]

5. But not all doctors do this.

Quite honestly the ceiling needs to be raised and more money pumped into the system, and the insurance companies need rottweilers set upon their asses to bring down their charges.

[DesertFlower]

12. i agree. my primary doc who treated me for 19 years

did not. unfortunately he retired at age 79.

it would have been interesting if i said yes to the x-ray. wonder if he would have sent me to the hospital he's affiliated with. the hospitals charge more for tests than the private lab does.

[no_hypocrisy]

2. My father is parrotting FOX News, thinks that Obama is ordering cuts to doctors with Medicare

patients.

The republicans in Congress are already de-funding Medicare.

[Ginto]

3. Dr's need to accept that we must move to more of a Canadian/European model.

Less schooling costs, but lower salaries. It is the only way we are going to survive.

[bossy22]

4. excuse me?

how many years of med school have you been through? Being a med school student myself i can say that cost is not the only major issue facing us. There is this little thing called stress. I have atleast triple the work load that i had in undergrad. We have multiple major exams every week- we get no more than 1 week for summer break and 1 week for christmas. Many of us keep blankets and pillows in our cars because we dont have time to go home so we sleep in the parking lot. And after the 4 years it doesnt end there- we have 3-4 more years of this thing called residency where you get paid less than the guy who waxes the floors yet work upwards of 80-100 hrs a week. So excuse me for wanting to get paid a sizable sum of money after going through all this.

[Iliyah]

6. Well the

ones yelling the loudest about cutting medicaid, medicare and probably medi-cal are the GOP, ya know, the ones that many of the seniors voted for. Therefore, it's on them.

[Crunchy Frog]

7. Well, I think the training end of the medical system needs to be reformed too.

It's frankly inhuman, and unfortunately many (not all) of the people who go through it end up inhuman too.

[bossy22]

8. agreed 100%

there have moves in the right direction- especially in my state (NY). Recently a new law was passed that put us at an 80 hr/wk max (still DOUBLE the average work week). Also, residency is treated like hazing into a club- many times attendents will belittle you because they believe its the best way to weed out overconfidence. The professors aren't much better themselves.

[Ginto]

9. You'll notice that I said we need to move to more of a Canadian/European model.

Those things are addressed in that model. You may not end up a millionaire, but you can be comfortable being a dr. in those regions.

[lbrtbell]

10. Cry me a river!

You want REAL stress? Try having a chronic illness and being unable to afford medical care. Your stress will end when your residency ends. Our stress is FOREVER.

We go to you doctors and you treat us like cattle, not caring about our pain and suffering, only wanting more-more-more money. My ailments have been made worse by doctors, time and again, because they don't care.

I've been in ER, talking to a woman who was supposed to be put on oxygen because she couldn't breathe, and do you know what two of your "hard-working" doctors were doing? Standing outside the room DISCUSSING THEIR PORTFOLIOS while this poor woman was GASPING FOR BREATH.

This is not an exception--this is the rule. Very few doctors care about anything but money, which is why they'd rather let elderly people go without medical help, than take less money and accept needy, often terminal, Medicare patients.

Please do us all a favor and quit med school now. We patients do not need another doctor who puts money over people. If you want money that badly, go work on Wall Street. Because this greed and unfeeling attitude among doctors is a huge part of our health care crisis.

[Dyler Turden]

13. Hey, if you're in it for the money there are probably easier ways to go.

Study to be a hedge funds manager or become a GOP politician.

[MannyGoldstein]

14. Do European docs have it easier?

Thanks.

[No Elephants]

17. Doctors are imposing those requirements on you, yet you want patients to compensate you--and for

the rest of your life to boot.

Btw, I have fewer problems with compensating doctors than I have with holes in your rationale. I think doctors should make a good living. The responsiblity is enormous. (Having said that, doctors trained that way for a long time, but it's only relatively recently that they expected to get rich--and when they work shorter hours and fewer days per week than did their predecessors, too, but I still don't begrudge them a nice living.

Hospital costs, on the other hand, are outrageous.

[lumberjack_jeff]

19. Why would you do that?

The workload is so strenuous because the AMA wants you to drop out before you can go into competition with their members.

But if you succeed, you'll make your "sizeable sum". At which point, you'll be an AMA member who can throttle the supply of doctors to guarantee your own income.

But no, I don't excuse you. Lots of people work hard.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

22. a lot of students are stressed doing what they want to do with their lives

i am stressed as a phd student but i dont feel entitled to a huge payoff at the end.

get over yourself.

[Carolina]

20. less schooling???

The length of undergraduate medical education (i.e. medical school), postgraduate training and continuing medical education are quite literally VITAL to learning and keeping up with medicine and thereby treating patients effectively.

The problem with costs are the layers of documentation for insurance companies, defensive procedures to protect from the lawyers (because medicine is not an exact science, e.g. individuals react differently to medication regimens, etc), and lack of physicians invited to participate in health care policy.

Most medical students today are over $200,000 in debt at graduation. They are are already slaves to insurers (employers) who make them jump through ever more hoops. Doctors my age are burned out and have already seen our incomes slashed. But the last thing you want in people respopnsible for your life is LESS EDUCATION!

[Ginto]

24. Read again. nt

[davidthegnome]

11. There are many kinds of doctors

As in any other area of work or life, you've got quite a variety of character aspects.

There is nothing wrong with wanting to earn a decent amount of money for hard work. I say this as someone who is uninsured and can't get treated for a number of issues. I do not blame the individual doctors. I blame the entire medical establishment in general, but most of all I blame the insurance companies and the politicians.

A great (French) Doctor I knew once told me that American medicine must remove profit as an issue, in order to succeed. I strongly believe she was right. Just watch a little TV, the drug ads are out of control, the lack of regulation is a direct result of the greed of both the politicians and the drug company executives. It's all so damn tangled there's no end to it. But don't get angry at a Doctor for wanting to make money.

Get pissed at the people on top who have screwed us all - and continue to screw us every day. Sadly, regardless of this screwing of the masses, many people in this Nation seem inclined to vote Republican. Though to be frank, some times it's hard to see anything more than a very tiny difference between the two political parties and those who control them. Coke, pepsi, cocaine, Meth, democrats, republicans. Pick your poison, ultimately they're all just going to make you sick, or delusional, or poor, or maybe even dead.

There are many kinds of doctors, but there really aren't that many kinds of politicians. There really aren't that many kinds of corporate executive types. They're rich, they're getting richer every day, why should they give a shit about us? A little here, a little there, smoke and mirrors, we elect the same douche bags time after time. Doctors at least go into their work hoping to make a difference and help people. If they become jaded in time, that's a damn shame, but it's far more of a shame that after all of this time, with all of this power and wealth over the years - that this - is the best we can do.

I'm sorry and sad for those who cannot or will not get the medical treatment they need - but we are in this situation until we all get pissed off enough to do something about it. Unfortunately for me, all I'm able to feel at the moment is an overwhelming apathy and contempt for this whole business of politics.

[Yo_Mama]

15. The scheduled cuts taking effect in Dec & Jan are 29.6%

It's a huge cut.

My old neighbor just got dumped by her doctor of decades. He's not taking Medicare any more.

If these cuts aren't reversed a lot of Medicare patients won't have a doctor.

[dixiegrrrrl]

16. but Medicare PREMIUMS increased, again, this year.

Premiums which are automatically taken out of Soc. sec. checks.

Part B, Part D are taken out of the checks, the premiums rise every year, as do the deductibles,
yet the payment for services are being cut.

and the soc. Sec. payments remain the same year to year now.

People on Medicare do have an option of signing up for those deductions, but I do not know if or what option there is for getting out of the premiums deductions.

[Yo_Mama]

25. In 2014

Seniors will be fined if they don't pay those premiums. Seniors satisfy their coverage requirement under health care reform by paying those premiums, and if not, I guess they have to pay the fine like anyone else.

How that is going to work I don't know, because there are quite a few seniors who are really poor and really can't afford to pay it.

Even better yet, the retirees might be forced to take early retirement to get the money to pay those premiums.

Although there is one good thing. For people who are already on Social Security, when the COLA doesn't rise their premiums don't rise either. But if you start in such a year, you do have to pay the increased premium.

[dixiegrrrrl]

26. "when the COLA doesn't rise their premiums don't rise either"

1. I did not know that.

2. Wonder if the premium rise equals the COLA payment. Betcha not.

3. We shall see if the fine thing is valid come 2014. Aren't the evil Repubs supposed to be against all that?
Maybe they will defeat.

Ooops..I forgot, for a second, who owns them, too. Silly me.

[lumberjack_jeff]

18. The AMA is 30% of the problem.

They're a trade union, hired by the membership to maximize their income. They have no credibility on social policy.

[NashVegas]

21. This Is DU. I Thought Unions Were Good?

No?

[lumberjack_jeff]

23. Good for the membership.

No other unions control the supply of a trade on which everyone's life depends.

Pay more, or we'll let you die.

The AMA should be nationalized.

[SharonAnn]

27. They're really more like a monopoly.