Ronald DePinho, M.D.
Posted on 12/11/2013 10:45:04 AM PST by ShadowAce
Just recently, the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center was announced as one of an elite group of six cancer research and treatment centers throughout the world who will participate in an ongoing collaborative effort to fast-track the advancement of cancer treatment development as part of a new GlaxoSmithKline initiative. It is just one in a series of many examples of how MD Anderson is the preeminent cancer research and treatment center in the United States, if not the world.
According to a new report in the Financial Times, new healthcare plans are being nudged by the statutes of the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as Obamacare, so that they will exclude in-network coverage for patients to visit top cancer hospitals for advanced therapy — including MD Anderson — when the plans go into full effect next year.
Under the new healthcare plans, a cancer center like MD Anderson will not be included as part of the choices within patients’ covered networks. Instead, visiting MD Anderson for cancer treatment would be “out-of-network,” meaning that very little of the cost would be covered by insurance; most would come out of pocket.
According to the FT report, the shift by insurers to exclude coverage to top treatment centers has everything to do with the new statutes handed down by Obamacare, which seeks to balance costs through what critics see as rationing of care and limiting choices for patients:
“One of the biggest goals of ‘Obamacare’ was to make subsidized healthcare plans that are being sold on the new exchanges as affordable as possible, while also mandating that certain benefits, like maternity care, were covered and that people with pre-existing medical conditions could not be denied access.
Amid these new regulatory restrictions, says Tim Jost, a health policy expert, insurance companies have had to come up with new ways to cut the cost of their products. In this new era, limiting the availability of certain facilities that are seen as too expensive – in part because they may attract the sickest patients or offer the most cutting edge medical care – is seen as the best way to control costs.”
The Obama administration has moved aggressively to characterize this lack of coverage as the fault of insurance companies, and that Obamacare in an of itself has not dictated that top research and treatment centers explicitly be excluded from plans that conform to the law’s new rules, with an HHS spokesperson noting that, “Decisions about which private health insurance plans cover which doctors is a decision currently made by insurers and providers and will continue that way.”
Yet, industry experts explain that, because new Obamacare statues have constrained healthcare insurers’ ability to maintain profitability, the only recourse is to narrow healthcare networks to include only the most cost-effective providers. Because of this, top cancer centers like MD Anderson, whose healthcare prices billed to insurers — and ultimately patients — are higher due to its faculty of world-renowned researchers and medical practitioners, are too expensive to include in networks.
Supporters of Obamacare have sought to portray these research institutions’ price points less as a result of their excellence, and more because of institutional inefficiencies. However, Thomas Priselac, president and chief executive officer of Cedars-Sinai Health System in California, explained to the FT, “There is confusion between price and efficiency,” adding, “The major teaching and research hospitals are more expensive not because they are inefficient but because of what they do.”
Ronald DePinho, M.D.
While Obamacare is already facing the prospect of the so-called “death spiral” in striking a balance in solvency with the risk of the healthy, young “invincible” generation rejecting the coverage, thus hyper-inflating healthcare costs for the rest of Americans, the risk of reducing revenues to research and treatment centers such as MD Anderson is that Americans could lose access to critically important specialized treatments, as well as experimental research that in necessary in continuing to advance new treatments and possibly cures for deadly diseases such as cancer.
Dr. Ronald DePinho, CEO of MD Anderson, offered what can now be seen as a prophetic set of comments on this issue back in May, when he said in a candid memo to the institution: “We can’t run the institution at an operating loss, especially at a time when the health care field faces external challenges from implementation of the Affordable Care Act, the budget sequester and continuing federal deficits. If we don’t make changes now, we potentially will find ourselves in a crisis that will force us to take drastic measures that could hurt our ability to meet our mission.”
If this was Dr. DePinho’s position in May, certainly it has sharpened in the months since the rollout of Obamacare.
[UPDATE 12/9/2013 1:15pm CST: An MD Anderson spokesperson issued the following statement to the press in response to the Financial Times article:
“All patients deserve access to top tier cancer care. MD Anderson and the nation's other top cancer centers play a key role in the fight against cancer, and particularly aggressive forms of the disease or rare cancers where expertise is limited to only a small number of facilities worldwide.
In addition, our country's leading cancer centers help bring down the cost of care for all patients by conducting research that leads to new and better treatments, better cancer fighting strategies and increased efficiencies that lead to cost savings. This knowledge is shared among all cancer care providers to benefit patients in the US and beyond our borders.
While every cancer patient may not need to come to MD Anderson, we believe both insurance providers and our health care system must work together to ensure patients have that option so that all of us have the best chance of beating cancer.” ]
That’s kind of how it works in Germany. They put you to the front of the line when you pay cash and it is not expensive.
Idiocracy was very prophetic wasn’t it???
yes it was, the left is using it as their inspiration
I don’t know about the truth of this.
Wife thrown out of Texas risk pool because it closed, and Humana tells her that she will be covered for her MDA costs under a Humana Gold PPO Obamacare plan.
Price went from $536/mo to $776/mo.
Why are Americans allowing this destructio of oir medical sydtem?
Probably because thay had no idea of whst they were buying. Maybe becsuse they are to busy, to stupid, or for socialism. We know this has always been about our inallienable rights, control, and the slow march to dictorial socialist government.
MD Anderson saved the life of my youngest daughter. Rescued and birthed the child she was carrying, a girl named Fayth, and taught me just how special life’s challeges can be. My access to my home town cancer center will not be changed because my Cadilac plan covers this hospital. Others though will not be this fortunate.
If not stopped we will have a true two teired medical system
We need to make these bass turds pay for generations for the suffering impossed on the American citizens
How to opt out of obamacare:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3100790/posts
Communism is legitimized mass-murder. Either you overthrow it or it will overthrow you.
Leftist luddites always looking for the “perpetual” motion machines, always looking for Utopia.
Obviously the good doctor hasn't been watching example set by the US government for the past eighty years.
Besides, with the Administration's new Five Year Plan, the quotas can and will be met. Shirkers, hooligans, and capitalist wreckers will soon find out differently if they continue to speak out otherwise...
People are always complaining about how much doctors make and how much hospitals charge. They are SAVING LIVES, dammit! They deserve every penny they make. And it costs a fortune to run a state of the art hospital, they can’t give their freaking services away.
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New York Times: For Those At Deaths Door, A Case For Death Panels
I heard about this thing but never was mentioned all those stupid elitist musings on it. Disgusting!
The best medical care in the world and we're seeing it destroyed. Our Congress and Supreme Court is doing nothing. Why?
The doctors and nurses at MDA are hardly inefficient. Describing them as true professionals does not do them justice. My mom and I actually sat and talked with one of the top lymphoma/myeloma doctors in the country, and maybe the world, for almost an hour and a half one day with only brief interruptions. I was simply amazed at the level of commitment and expertise shown by everyone, from the department head to the cleaning and food service people I came into contact with.
The downside of places like MDA? They're huge!!! Just the lymphoma/myeloma wing would dwarf many full sized hospitals in most major cities I suspect. Bring walking shoes! And jug ears wants to exclude them from the party. With people going there from all over the country and around the world, I think somehow they'll survive. I pray they do...
The doctors and nurses at MDA are hardly inefficient. Describing them as true professionals does not do them justice. My mom and I actually sat and talked with one of the top lymphoma/myeloma doctors in the country, and maybe the world, for almost an hour and a half one day with only brief interruptions. I was simply amazed at the level of commitment and expertise shown by everyone, from the department head to the cleaning and food service people I came into contact with.
The downside of places like MDA? They're huge!!! Just the lymphoma/myeloma wing would dwarf many full sized hospitals in most major cities I suspect. Bring walking shoes! And jug ears wants to exclude them from the party. With people going there from all over the country and around the world, I think somehow they'll survive. I pray they do...
Also, many of the large insurers have firmly negotiated rates with MDA because MDA is the 800 pound gorilla of cancer treatment, and all the major insurers almost have to deal them or they are missing a big piece of the market.
What this really means is that people that are dumb enough to sign up for an Obamacare plan will not have access to MDA.
They will be relegated to use less qualified facilities that the government deems suitable for their use. And, more of them will die if they ever get cancer.
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