Free Republic

Better beat the crowd and find a doctor. Primary care physicians already are in short supply in parts of the country, and the landmark health overhaul that will bring them millions more newly insured patients in the next few years promises extra strain.

A quiet revolution is transforming how medical care is delivered in this country, and it has very little to do with the sweeping health care legislation that President Obama just signed into law. But it could have a big impact on that law’s chances for success. Traditionally, American medicine has been largely a cottage industry. Most doctors cared for patients in small, privately owned clinics — sometimes in rooms adjoining their homes. But an increasing share of young physicians, burdened by medical school debts and seeking regular hours, are deciding against opening private practices. Instead, they are accepting salaries at...

March 23, 2010 My Dear Patient, As you must know, Congress has just passed extensive legislation governing health care delivery and insurance systems. Whether you agree with what it does or not, we are all now subject to this law and its sweeping changes. I have always conducted my medical practice with my patient’s best interests as my first priority. Although not legally obliged to do so, I have routinely provided you with a receipt that has all the codes necessary to bill your own health insurance company for any reimbursement to which you are entitled. Until now, that insurance...

Imagine you are injured, hurt, in terrible pain and are told that you will have to wait 180 days to see a doctor. He will be able to help you 6 months from now, but don't worry, you are officially on the waiting list and it won't cost you anything out of pocket. Would you wait? Well, if you live in England, a country with nationalized health care, that could be your scenario. If you continue to live in the United States, and the Health Care Bill passes and progresses as the Democrats have planned, that will also be the...

Health Overhaul: We were harshly criticized last September for an IBD/TIPP Poll that showed 45% of doctors would consider leaving medicine if a health care takeover passed. A new poll has vindicated our findings. Our questionnaire went out Aug. 28 to some 25,600 doctors nationwide. Of that substantial sample, we got 1,476 responses. One hundred of those were retired, leaving 1,376. At the time, virtually no one had stopped to ask doctors how they felt about the medical takeover being discussed in Congress. We thought it was vital to ask them, since any overhaul would rise or fall on its...

Health Reform: The white coats showed up again at the White House, helping the administration ram health care reform down our throats. Can you have a bipartisan bill without a bipartisan vote?It didn't work the first time, when the White House last year assembled enough sympathetic medical professionals to stage a photo-op in the Rose Garden trying to persuade us that, as the commercial goes, three of four doctors really, really support the administration's attempt to nationalize health care. Rather than a grass-roots uprising of physicians, last year's event was a classic case of astroturfing. Attendance was by invitation only,...

One look at my office tells you that I'm still taking Medicare patients: The worn carpet and peeling paint give it away. Yes, Medicare's payment rates are that bad. The real threat of a further across-the-board cut of 21 percent only added to the old problems of "routine" Medicare cuts. The program now pays $53 for a standard office visit; with the cut, that would've been $40. For comparison, Aetna pays $70. Average Medicare payments to physicians have been relatively stagnant since 2001 (but reimbursements for surgery and procedures have been cut a lot). Meanwhile, average total physicians' costs have...

Three days before the Feb 25 media event, where chosen representatives can say their last words before the nuclear option is set off, The President’s Proposal on “healthcare reform” was released. These 11 pages do not start with a blank sheet of paper, as Republicans recommended, but with the 2,000-page Senate bill. They are getting a disproportionate amount of commentary, but amount to little difference.

Today in Los Angeles charges were presented against Michael Jackson’s doctor. Charges of involuntary manslaughter by Dr. Conrad Murray, a cardiologist who had acted “unlawfully and without malice” in bringing about Mr. Jackson by administrating a powerful sedative in order to help Mr. Jackson sleep.

More than 40 percent of physicians participating in a single-question online poll said they feel the U.S. government "never will" understand how declining reimbursement rates from Medicare negatively affect the care patients receive from their physicians.

<p>Changes to Medicare will give the feds control of surgical decisions.Changes to Medicare will give the feds control of surgical decisions.</p> <p>Democrats are touting the American Medical Association's endorsement of President Obama's health plan. But there's an important reason why the American College of Surgeons and 18 other specialty groups are opposed.</p>

Democrats are touting the American Medical Association's endorsement of President Obama's health plan. But there's an important reason why the American College of Surgeons and 18 other specialty groups are opposed. The plan's most tangible efforts to restrain medical costs are through its controls on specialist physicians. Based on the government's premise that they often make wasteful treatment decisions, the health-care legislation in Congress will subject doctors to a mix of financial penalties and regulations to constrain their use of the most costly clinical options. The penalties and regulations are aimed first and foremost at surgeons and the medical devices...

Afghan girls wait for medical treatment in the village of Zakuzi in the Zabul province of Afghanistan, Nov. 18, 2009. U.S. Army medical personnel and Afghan physicians are providing villagers assorted medical services during a civilian affairs patrol. Photographer's Name: TSgt. Efren Lopez Location: Zakuzi village Date Shot: 11/18/2009 Date Posted: 11/24/2009

Reform: Only a Bernie Madoff could believe the Senate's health care bill will extend coverage to 31 million Americans while cutting deficits by $127 billion over 10 years. It would be the first profitable entitlement. But that's what Majority Leader Harry Reid, citing Congressional Budget Office estimates, tells us the 2,074-page bill — said to cost only $849 billion over a decade — would do. Like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, he seems to be following Vice President Joe Biden's admonition at an AARP town hall meeting that "we've got to spend money to keep from going bankrupt." We suspect Reid's...

Health Care: A government task force has decided that women need fewer mammograms and later in life. Shouldn't that be between patient and physician? We have seen the future of health care, and it doesn't work. We have warned repeatedly that the net results of health care bills before Congress will be higher demand, fewer doctors, more cost control, all leading to rationing. New recommendations issued by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) regarding breast cancer and the necessity for early and frequent mammograms do not convince us otherwise. Just six months ago, the panel, which works under the...

The American Medical Association leadership is spineless when it comes to the health reforms now before Congress. The organization has focused almost entirely on a single issue -- the repeal of the Medicare Sustainable Growth Rate formula, which penalizes doctors a percentage every year if the total amount we're reimbursed exceeds government projections. The formula calls for a 21 percent across-the-board cut in our Medicare payments this year. The formula is absurd -- if it ever went into effect, doctors would flee Medicare, patients would revolt and Congress would have to reverse itself. All it does is force the AMA...

ATTENTION EVERYONE! The MillionMedMarch is Marching State by State. When: 12:00 PM Local Time, November 21, 2009 Where: All Major Cities A physician grassroots movement to re-establish honor, dignity and worth to the medical profession. That its sole mission is to protect the relationship between the doctor and the patient. For more information, go to: http://www.millionmedmarch.com/

Like many other doctors, I've been looking at my panel of patients and trying to decide whether a "public option" in health reforms will help them. Unfortunately, I can't think of a single patient where it will. As an internist, I have a varied practice, with patients ranging from rich to poor, from chronically ill to "worried well." On any given day, I see at least one quarter of cases (including Medicaid patients) without charge; one or two come in without insurance and pay me cash. Most of the time, I accept the patient's HMO or Medicare without looking closely...

(PDF Format) Free Congress Foundation Commentary The Major Incurable Disease – Tort Terror By Marion Edwyn Harrison, Esq. October 21, 2009 Unlike other countries, our Federal system and many of our State judicial systems encourage litigation against physicians and hospitals. The practice of medicine is almost unimaginatively sophisticated, as applicable knowledge continually becomes more complicated and more extensive.

Details emerge of the scam job meeting on the White House lawn. Michelle Malkin tells Sean Hannity the greasy tactics of the Obama White House.