Medicare's not fixed: Even with 21% cuts stopped

NY Post ^ | March 3, 2010 | MARC K. SIEGEL

[Osage Orange]

There is no inherent right to make $500K a year that doctors magically have

You continue to amaze....

ROFLOL!!!

[rbg81]

I was talking about what he takes home AFTER all those expenses. Sorry, but I don’t know any poor doctors.

[rbg81]

Are you a primary care physician or a specialist? Where do you practice? I have friends and relatives who are doctors. While I don’t grill them on how much they make exactly, they sure do live a more affluent lifestyle than I do. My cousin the anestesiologist could sure afford to paint and carpet his office (though, I think his is taken care of by the hospital). My own primary care doctor just moved into a brand new office suite. I don’t think he’s hurting either.

[therut]

I am a FP. The guy writing the article was not a “specialist’. Alot of physicians have given up and are employeed by hospitals hence they do not pay for their carpet or new buildings. Our office is 35 years old. I see around 35-45 patients a day and take care of one nursing home and take call and have hospital patients. We have 60% Medicare and Medicaid patients and they are the problem. We do not make alot of money. We can not pass on our increasing costs of overhead. Much of our overhead is due to .gov regulations requied to get our .gov pennies. The other 5 physicians in the clinic do OB. I gave that up 3 years ago as almost all are Medicaid and they pay us 1,100 for 9 months of misery and stress. Was not worth it. Now last month and this month Medicare has delayed our checks for 2 weeks. We had to borrow money last pay period and may have to this pay period. It is a sad situation.

[rbg81]

So...maybe you can elaborate on why you think health care costs are rising so fast—much faster than inflation. Is it just Government regulation? Are they causing the problem just to fix the problem? What is the solution? If you want, you can respond via FR email.