Wednesday, April 08, 2009
What does the TARP teach us about health care reform?
If you are in the health care industry, this comment ought to be food for thought:
[O]nce Obama and the Democrats inject Government money into Health Care reform, they are going to swoop in and regulate health care salaries and compensation, just like they are trying to do with all of the financial institutions that took Government funds.
Now that the Democrats at various levels of government have established that recipients of taxpayer dollars are subject to post hoc limits on the compensation of their executives or -- see Andrew Cuomo -- threats of "investigation" or pillory, is there any well paid person in America who should not fight government intervention in his industry with tooth and nail, hammer and tongs? Given the uncertainty and the attitude of the Congressional leadership and state prosecutors, what do they have to lose?
2 Comments:
By 
JPMcT, at
Wed Apr 08, 04:42:00 PM:
Any doc who has a hefty involvement in Medicare already has his/her salary fixed.
MD's who participate in Medicare cannot bill in excess of the "UCR" (usual and customary reimbursement), which runs in the range of about 25-30% of the normal fee-for-service.
Other non-federal plans, being run by savvy businessmen, are not unaware of this. We bargain each year with multiple insurance plans whose reimbursement is tied in with the Medicare "UCR", plus a fraction of 10-20%.
We cannot refer our patients to our own diagnostic facilities or outpatient surgery centers unless strict criteria are met.
IF any one of a list of "never events" occurs, reimbursement for the care of that event is withheld. Some are reasonable, like wrong side surgery, others, like pneumonia, bedsores and phlebitis in an elderly population, are fantasy.
While we are held under the governments thumb with a bizarre "privacy" law that represents a draconian solution to a virtually non-existent problem, the goverment is getting ready to get copies of all your medical records (that was appropriated in the "stimulus" plan that nobody read")
Get tagged in a lawsuit....you name goes on a national database...whether it was a nuisance suit that was settled, or a real complaint.
I could go on for an hour. The basic fact is that one of the reasons I am so livid about Obama's socialistic orgy is that I've been basically "socialized" for the past 15 years.
For many of us, it has ruined a fine profession. As one of my colleagues has said, "I haven't lost my love of medicine....I've just had it slowly beaten out of me!"
By SR, at
Wed Apr 08, 08:38:00 PM:
The only good thing about the National Practitioner database is that by now it is virtually useless as so many names have been entered. It is probably also somewhat true that well known physicians at large medical centers have their names in there on multiple occasions.
