Consumer Risks Feared as Health Care Law Spurs Mergers

[Better Believe It]

Consumer Risks Feared as Health Law Spurs Mergers
By ROBERT PEAR
November 20, 2010

Now, eight months into the new law there is a growing frenzy of mergers involving hospitals, clinics and doctor groups eager to share costs and savings, and cash in on the incentives. They, in turn, have deployed a small army of lawyers and lobbyists trying to persuade the Obama administration to relax or waive a body of older laws intended to thwart health care monopolies, and to protect against shoddy care and fraudulent billing of patients or Medicare.

Consumer advocates fear that the health care law could worsen some of the very problems it was meant to solve — by reducing competition, driving up costs and creating incentives for doctors and hospitals to stint on care, in order to retain their cost-saving bonuses.

“The new law is already encouraging a wave of mergers, joint ventures and alliances in the health care industry,” said Prof. Thomas L. Greaney, an expert on health and antitrust law at St. Louis University. “The risk that dominant providers and dominant insurers may exercise their market power, individually or jointly, has never been greater.”

With potential efficiencies come incentives for doctors and hospitals to control costs, and a potential for abuse. Judith A. Stein, director of the nonprofit Center for Medicare Advocacy, said she was concerned that some care organizations would try to hold down costs by “cherry-picking healthier patients and denying care when it’s needed.”

Peter W. Thomas, a lawyer for the Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities, a national advocacy group, expressed concern about the impact on patients.

“In an environment where health care providers are financially rewarded for keeping costs down,” he said, “anyone who has a disability or a chronic condition, anyone who requires specialized or complex care, needs to worry about getting access to appropriate technology, medical devices and rehabilitation. You don’t want to save money on the backs of people with disabilities and chronic conditions.”

Please read the full article at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/21/health/policy/21health.html?_r=1&ref=us&pagewanted=all

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

1. "Mergers" plural?

I didn't know multiple mergers were still possible.

[originalpckelly]

2. What would be happening if Obama had let us have the public option?

Of course this is going to turn into a fiasco, because they're doing all the wrong things. They're going to make people buy insurance. As if not wanting health care was a problem for the vast majority of us uninsured. Can't just take care of people, no, they've got to pull this bullshit.

This is what happens when you take on right wing policies. The mandatory insurance was the idea of the people on the right, back when Hillary was trying to get us all taken care of.

[Nite Owl]

5. Obama campaigned on no mandates

with the exception of children. He put Hillary down in a debate for her wanting mandates.

[amborin]

3. i posted that yesterday and it sank:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x9603888

[Name removed]

4. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.