Posted on 05/17/2011 4:42:21 AM PDT by suspects
The good news for Mitt Romney is that we’ve finally found someone else who agrees that Romneycare has been a “resounding success.”
The bad news? That person is this state’s liberal governor, Deval Patrick.
As The Wall Street Journal noted in their devastating editorial take-down of Romneycare last week: “It’s no accident that [Romneycare’s] most vociferous defenders now are in the White House and left-wing media and think tanks.”
And it’s also no accident that Romneycare’s out-of-control costs and soaring premiums have forced its defenders to reach for radical solutions. In Patrick’s case, it’s a “global payments” system.
Under Patrick’s plan — which Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts is experimenting with right now — doctors and hospitals would no longer be paid a “fee for service.” Instead, they would get flat annual payments per patient from insurers, based on factors like age, sex and health history. State government payments for medical care would change first, while there would be incentives for the rest of the system to switch to global payments.
Some have compared it to paying a “prix fixe” at a restaurant instead of ordering off the menu. Former Boston hospital exec Paul Levy says that “if government mandates that ‘global payment’ is the only legal payment method, you get Canada.”
But what global payment really is, is an admission that the Romneycare/Obamacare model does nothing to control costs.
Before the enactment of Romneycare, Massachusetts spent about 30 percent of its budget on health care. Today it’s 40 percent. As The Wall Street Journal notes, the national average is 25 percent.
Today, the Massachusetts health care system is a fiscal train wreck. But Patrick wants to push the throttle even harder.
Instead of acknowledging that the government-mandate system that we have now is killing us...
(Excerpt) Read more at bostonherald.com ...
Deval Patrick is “the canary in the coal mine” as far as seeing where Obama will take us.
I love this idea.....if they implement it, they’ll realize that doctors can skip the middle-man and simply contract directly with their patients ala boutique medicine for a fixed monthly fee.
Doctors can opt for being an insurance companies b!itch or take on a more limited workload that they completely control and use the spare time for leisure.
Health care will be more impossible to get in MA.
It’s getting pretty bad when even the liberal press dim-bulbs begin to see the light.
Hillarycare had a five year prison sentence, per offense, for treating a patient outside the system.
This is a certainty, as soon as they think they have enough power.
“There will be more who will defect. Then the liberals will try to make them outlaws. It is what they do.”
Oh, you can be sure they will - and I’m under no illusion that they haven’t thought of that eventuality, and will attempt a legislative solution. Still, you can’t force people to work (the welfare state has proven that).
During this transition time, maintaining good health is more important than ever - because it’s going to be a rough road to get to where we need to be - patients that pay doctors for care that they need without interference.
In 2006, the Government of British Columbia threatened to shut down one private clinic because it was planning to start accepting private payments from patients.
“Doctor’s are different from most people. They won’t like it but they will still keep working”
I do not doubt that doctors will continue working at some pace, being the professionals that they are for the most part. However, they will not work as hard or be as productive as they would be if they were compensated for the additional effort - or have the possibility for future reward.
In that regard, they are exactly the same as other people.
What you say is true. Many doctors in Canada take a long vacation at the end of the year once they have met their quota.
I knew a guy in canada who’s doctor went on vacation in the middle of his cancer treatment (he died). Not sure it changed the outcome at all but nobody seemed to have a heads up.
I don’t blame the doc, but he doesn’t win any awards for exemplary professionalism either.
It will turn even the most seasoned pro into a clock-watching drone over time.
The endless line will just get a little longer. But it will also encourage ways around the official system.
So I see measures like this as a necessary miserable step towards the inevitable socialist collapse and recovery of sanity
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