The Medicare Doc Fiction

American Spectator ^ | 3/30/2015 | David Catron

[rootin tootin]

When will John Boehner learn that a bill is bad news if Nancy Pelosi supports it, President Obama wants to sign it, and the press sings its praises? That’s precisely what he had on his hands with H.R. 2, the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act, a.k.a. the “Doc Fix.” Yet today we find him basking in the approbation of the Beltway establishment for getting this bill passed. This “fix” will add billions to the federal deficit, replace an unworkable price control system with a worse scheme that will dictate how doctors practice medicine and place financial burdens on seniors.

To give Boehner his due, the impetus for this bill came from a laudable desire to repeal the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) boondoggle signed into law by Bill Clinton in 1997. Ostensibly meant to control Medicare spending, SGR was never workable because it would have held physician payments to a rate that failed to keep pace with rising costs. It would have amounted to a de facto annual pay cut and discouraged doctors from accepting Medicare patients. Congress consistently shrank from enforcing it, while physician groups relentlessly lobbied for a “permanent fix.”

Last week’s legislation finally provided that, but its contents suggest that Boehner is no better at negotiating with Democrats than the President is at dealing with Iran.

[BlueStateRightist]

Doctors need to leave Medicare (before the Feds and the states outlaw such a maneuver). Only that kind of statement will bring sense to a very flawed process.