Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : A US National Health Care System? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: longnshort who wrote (10653)	10/22/2009 4:44:54 PM
From: Peter Dierks	Respond to of 42652

Why Doctors Are Worried Marc Siegel, 10.22.09, 02:00 PM EDT The troubles of the impending health care take over are upon us. I sit before my aging patient Julia for a few moments before my office nurse bangs on the door to say I'm running late. Julia looks at me across the desk, and in her pleading eyes, I can see her hopes for a reassurance or a cure. She hopes that I will tell her that nothing is wrong, or if there is something, that I can immediately fix it. She is not thinking about health insurance reform. She is not worrying that the government is plotting to spread expensive insurance to pay for low-tech care for the entire population. She hopes only that her card will cover her in the case of illness. She is far more concerned about losing her connection with me and my network of doctors than she is about whether health insurance is extended to more people. Thinking about her and those like her makes me very angry. Should I tell her that the very art of medicine that I rely on to take care of her is in mortal jeopardy? I barely have enough time with my growing list of patients to concentrate on her case as it is, and the reform will bring me more patients with lower payments. Should I mention that many of my contemporaries (the network she relies on) are no longer accepting her Medicare, even before the reform bills sink their claws into it and cut Medicare to the bone with hundreds of billions in cuts? Should I say that primary care doctors like me already designate an employee to deal entirely with insurance, and that this problem will only get worse as we move in the direction of comparative effectiveness studies and bundling payments based on so-called quality? I lay awake at night thinking of the services I will deliver only to be denied payment. The orthopedist I referred Julia to for her total hip replacement received only $970 for the procedure, and he says he hates to operate now because he loses an hour before and after each operation getting ready and cleaning up. If his payments drop further or his malpractice premiums rise higher, he vows to work only in the office and avoid the operating room altogether. Who will operate on patients like Julia then? The organization that supposedly represents us, the spineless American Medical Association, has sold its soul to health reform in return for a one-year moratorium on the legislated, across the board 21% Medicare cuts that are always hanging over our heads. This feels too much like Kafka's In the Penal Colony, where our terrible future is written on our bodies in indelible ink. Every practicing doctor I know is worried about this future. PD forbes.com