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The problem is that the growth rate in health care spending exceeds the growth in GDP. As Karl Denninger correctly reminds us, such growth rates are exponential functions. When two exponential functions diverge, they do so rapidly. The result will be a crash. Perhaps the solution would be to have an individual cap on Medicare expenditures and let the patient decide how they want to spend the available money. When it is gone, they’re done. Just like every other expenditure. It would force patients to make cost-benefit decisions.

One look at my office tells you that I’m still taking Medicare patients: The worn carpet and peeling paint give it away.

I agree with much of what this guy says, but he almost lost all credibility with the first line of the piece. As an internist (and Fox News contributer!), how much do you think he makes a year? $200K?, $300K, $400K? The latter would be my guess (if not more). And he can’t afford $5K for new carpets and paint in his office? Please.

“Can’t pay for the carpets??” What horse hockey!! Doctors are the SINGLE most overpaid profession in the US because of a cartel that forbids new medical schools from being opened RIGHT HERE IN THE US

Yes, you heard it right. We have smart young AMERICANS who want to be doctors and would gladly take $100K as a salary instead of the inflated $300+ K these Cartel Doctors make. However, the AMA will not let a new medical school open without its permissions

For those of you who say this is Capitalism and the docs deserve to be paid $300K+, I say GIMME A BREAK!! Capitalism is FREE and OPEN competition. Open up as many Medical Schools as there are QUALIFIED kids. Let them all become QUALIFIED doctors and THEN let the freaking wages be what they are.

If a NFL quarterback gets paid $10 million a year, I don’t mind as that is what he is WORTH in the OPEN market. Not true for Doctors. We have an artificial shortage created by this CARTEL

So no sympathy for the CARTEL Doctors. Go compete in a real economy.

The program now pays $53 for a standard office visit; with the cut, that would've been $40. For comparison, Aetna pays $70.

Cheapskate government.

On the other hand, I just checked my latest claim for an office visit, and Aetna paid $57 (the non-negotiated rate request was $120).

And yet there's no serious attempt to find and prosecute Medicare fraud. So the honest healthcare providers suffer because of the felonies committed by the dishonest hd providers.

It's never about fraud, waste and cutting spending unless it's for a popular program like medicare - the same way they threaten to cut police and fire on a local level.