Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

How Obamacare's $716 Billion in Cuts Will Drive Doctors Out of Medicare
Forbes ^ | August 20, 2012

Posted on 08/20/2012 4:50:47 AM PDT by NCjim

There are 600,000 physicians in America who care for the 48 million seniors on Medicare. Of the $716 billion that the Affordable Care Act cuts from the program over the next ten years, the largest chunk—$415 billion—comes from slashing Medicare’s reimbursement rates to doctors, hospitals, and nursing homes. This significant reduction in fees is driving many doctors to stop accepting new Medicare patients, making it harder for seniors to gain access to needed care. Here are a few of their stories.

Paul Wertsch is a primary physician in Madison, Wisconsin. In 1977, he and his two partners invested $500,000 of their own money and opened their own practice, the Wildwood Family Clinic, on the east side of town. Wertsch’s clinic is popular with the seniors who go there, but over time, Medicare’s fee schedule has made it harder and harder on the practice.

Wertsch billed Medicare $217 to care for a Medicare patient with a sinus infection whose appointment ran late, because the patient required more time. Medicare reimbursed the clinic for $54.38. Later in the day, a younger patient with the same sinus infection, requiring half the time, was charged the same $217. But his private insurer reimbursed the clinic for twice the amount of Medicare: $108.04.

(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...


TOPICS: Front Page News; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 2102; democrats; doctors; healthcare; medicare; medicaredoctors; medicine; obama; obamacare; obamacaredoctors; physicians
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-67 next last
To: dalebert

Old people shouldn’t fear. The good ole government will just pass laws that to have a medical license, Drs. need to accept a certain percentage of medicare patients. Then the cost will just be passed on to the rest of us. It’s the American way.


41 posted on 08/20/2012 7:17:54 AM PDT by No Socialist
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: NCjim

If you think public service unions are big wait until Obamacare takes hold,every healthcare giver will be unionized by the millions of them.


42 posted on 08/20/2012 7:24:05 AM PDT by Vaduz
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: NCjim

Ask Obama voters to step up and be the first Medicare patients dropped from the practice.


43 posted on 08/20/2012 7:40:45 AM PDT by Mamzelle
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Venturer

Why the mal insurance providers? Why leave the scum sucking lawyers out of the equation? Also, concierge doctors don’t address what will happen to the hospital infrastructures.


44 posted on 08/20/2012 7:43:22 AM PDT by Mamzelle
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 40 | View Replies]

To: Mamzelle

At my local hospital now, when you are admitted to the hospital you no longer have your Doctor. You are turned over to hospital doctors.


45 posted on 08/20/2012 7:45:39 AM PDT by Venturer
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 44 | View Replies]

To: Mamzelle

i agree.. The head nurse at my main docs office at one point told me I can no longer see you, I can’t take Medi-Cal insurance... to which I told him, I’m not with Medi-Cal, I have PPO insurance through my employer...and the nurse said oops.. never mind..

the same will happen with Medicare patients.

but as someone said above, this is not important.. some Tea Party guy from Missouri made a gaffe and that is far more important news... nothing to see here.


46 posted on 08/20/2012 7:47:51 AM PDT by Chuzzlewit
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 43 | View Replies]

To: Venturer
This is true of every hospital. I think you miss my point. Everyone assumes the rich will have these concierge docs, but it won't help the rich if hospitals get shut down. People focus on docs when they are the smallest part of the equation of medical costs.

Rich people think their money will always help them. Money does not always answer all things. Example--even the google boys who have ambitions to become space tourists can never ride in the Space Shuttle which has been shut down.

47 posted on 08/20/2012 7:51:51 AM PDT by Mamzelle
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 45 | View Replies]

To: BillyBonebrake

>>Team Obama’s fools who have never run a business seem to think there’s a lot of money on the table easily recouped by reducing fraud and waste.<<

Your comment got me to thinking. Team Obama’s “fools” may have never run a business, but they damned sure have had a hand in distributing billions of taxpayer dollars to their friends, supporters, and bundlers.

In other words, the reason they always seem to think there’s a lot of money to be gained by reducing fraud and waste is because that’s where most of the money they deal with has gone. They’re just assuming the whole world works that way and that legitimate businesses also are rife with fraudulent spending.


48 posted on 08/20/2012 8:27:50 AM PDT by Norseman (Defund the Left-Completely!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 33 | View Replies]

To: bonehead4freedom
Just like Britain, import more Muslim doctors from Pakistan,India and Africa.They work cheap and won’t deliver any expensive treatment or tests for those white devil infidels.


In Britian’s NHS if you have a serious, debilitating joint ailment needing surgery you get a nice sympathetic acting "Asian" practitioner who puts on a good show of being very caring and compassionate.

They pat you on the hand, let you know how much they care for you and then they give you a prescription for aspirin. If you are young and lucky (or especially if you are well connected and if you are really well connected you go to the head of the line) you may get on the waiting list for a non state of the art surgery.

In the US, you go straight to outpatient surgery and get the problem fixed.

It it true that importing the foreign mercenary health care workers creates a system where the health care providers have no real sense of kinship or responsibility for the Native Brits which produces an indifferent or even resentful attitude on the part of the foreign workers that a big part of the problem in the NHS

49 posted on 08/20/2012 8:30:32 AM PDT by rdcbn
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]

To: SoFloFreeper
Never mind Obamugabe and his DESTRUCTION of America; did you hear about the 5 term Congressman from Missouri had a GAFFE?!?

It was more than a gaffe, and if he stays it won't be the last. Akin is a senile fool who looks like a corpse. We can do better.

50 posted on 08/20/2012 8:38:37 AM PDT by montag813
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: Kozak

“Close, but wrong. Doctors will be replaced with lower level “ Health Care Providers”, ie Physician Assistants and Nurse Practitioners. That’s the real plan.”

I would agree that this is the plan, but it will cause a big problem in the short term, that is the next 4-7 years. PAs and NPs can replace primary care doctors to some extent, but they cannot replace specialists, such as neurosurgeons, cardiologists, oncologists, orthopedics etc. etc. This is where the big advances in survival rates have been made. Even with regards to the training of NPs and PAs, it still takes 4 years of undergrad and 1-2 years of advanced training to become credentialed and qualified to practice.
Retirements for physicians (thoses in their late fifties and their 60s) will come soon and over a time frame much shorter than the time required for training NPs, PAs, and expediting foreign medical grads. Physicians in their 50s and 40s will downsize and modify their practices by dropping negative margin government payers. The younger physicians in their 40s and below will likely be in hospital owned practices and their productivity will be commensurate with their continually eroding salaries.
The tipping point is coming soon for Medicare patients and their Medicare cards, and it could resemble a currency collapse.


51 posted on 08/20/2012 8:43:08 AM PDT by grumpygresh (Democrats delenda est; zero sera dans l'enfer bientot.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: NCjim

Are you REALLY going to re-elect the people who did this America?

If I was a lib, I’d be wiping my butt with common people too. :(


52 posted on 08/20/2012 8:47:53 AM PDT by Tzimisce (THIS SUCKS)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: patriotspride
That last list of reasons NOT to let the Gubmint run health care is BRILLIANT! Would you mind if I "borrowed" those points and put them in a letter to the editor of my town's newspaper, and also distributed them to as many people as I can?

They are really an excellent "tool" to hammer home the Conservative message: Government is never the solution to any problem; it IS the problem!

53 posted on 08/20/2012 9:20:22 AM PDT by milagro (There is no peace in appeasement.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 38 | View Replies]

To: NCjim

IMO, the whole idea of OC was to drive physicians out of Medicare to the point where the government can claim it must “nationalize” health care and force (greedy) physicians to work for the government.


54 posted on 08/20/2012 9:45:28 AM PDT by ChildOfThe60s (If you can remember the 60s....you weren't really there)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: NCjim

Honestly, what arrogance drives one to believe that they can cut down a doctor’s pay and they’ll still keeping giving their all? I can’t count how many times I’ve listened to people talk about healthcare with complete disrespect for doctors in their voice, as if they can have one without the other.


55 posted on 08/20/2012 10:32:44 AM PDT by RWB Patriot ("My ability is a value that must be purchased and I don't recognize anyone's need as a claim on me.")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Josa

Not only do the imported doctors bring translation problems, many are muslim and are frequently dismissive of their women patients. My daughter’s husband is in the Navy. Many of their doctors are muslims (go figure). She frequently tells me how the doctors don’t even let her finish her sentences before they cut her off.

***

Ha. Try being a white middle aged RN and having to work around these spoiled brat man/boys. I know one whom I’ve worked with who looks like he’d like to cut my head off everytime I try to talk to him. I’m sure he does ..and would ..if the law didn’t prevent him from doing so.


56 posted on 08/20/2012 10:46:23 AM PDT by LibsRJerks
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 18 | View Replies]

To: RWB Patriot

Honestly, what arrogance drives one to believe that they can cut down a doctor’s pay and they’ll still keeping giving their all? I can’t count how many times I’ve listened to people talk about healthcare with complete disrespect for doctors in their voice, as if they can have one without the other.

**

I tell you, this comes from those in healthcare themselves. there is NO respect for doctors anymore, and I find it appalling. As an RN, I correct my fellow RN’s all the time when I hear it. We treat these people with so little respect, yet they are the reason so many of us are alive at 70, 80,or beyond. They are hardworking, extremely intelligent people who deserve the best and every PENNY of what they earn!!

— but I’m sure Obama would say they didn’t “build” those medical practices on their own!!


57 posted on 08/20/2012 10:52:29 AM PDT by LibsRJerks
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 55 | View Replies]

To: originalbuckeye

Cheaper yet to drawn down the number of employees you have or to break up the company into VERY SMALL divisions, with their own accounting processes.


58 posted on 08/20/2012 11:46:25 AM PDT by ridesthemiles
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]

To: milagro

No problem. They were passed on to me by my 85 year old uncle.

Don’t know the original source , but do believe they reflect the reality of the situation.


59 posted on 08/20/2012 12:55:43 PM PDT by patriotspride
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 53 | View Replies]

To: RWB Patriot
At one point in our history, being a doctor had a great deal of prestige. Frankly, a lot more prestige than money.

It was a cheesy lawyer who made enough millions suing doctors to run for president. Unless a doctor becomes a businessman and owns clinics and hires other doctors, he'll never see those kind of bucks.

People became jealous and envious of the prestige, and politicians fed off the resentment. Putting doctors down became cocktail party conversation.

It's just another kind of class warfare. I'm actually looking forward to those cocktail partiers discovering that their doctor is quitting early to seek a modest retirement.

60 posted on 08/20/2012 1:43:53 PM PDT by Mamzelle
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 55 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-67 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson