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To: Pogeu Mahone who wrote (229786)	11/21/2009 2:48:36 PM
From: Think4Yourself	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 306849

re: Doctors should have a national strike.. let us see how the system works without them The doctors will never do that. The human body has a remarkable ability to heal itself, and has done it for thousands of years before doctors existed. Doctors ARE needed at times but people might discover they don't need doctors anywhere near as much as they thought they did. This would result in drastic cuts to both the pay and jobs for doctors. The "system" would be decimated. There would also be a buttload of ill will towards doctors by the minority of people who really do need them. I have no regular doctor, and have visited one maybe a dozen times in the last 50 years, usually in an emergency room. Exercise and some common sense is my prescription.

To: Pogeu Mahone who wrote (229786)	11/21/2009 3:16:18 PM
From: Les H	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 306849

H.R. 3961 will repeal a seriously flawed formula used to set Medicare physician reimbursement rates. The culprit is something called the “sustainable growth rate” formula, introduced in a budget bill passed by Congress in 1997. While it’s a complex formula, the basic idea is that the amount Medicare pays to provide care for an average Medicare patient can’t grow faster than the economy as a whole. When the economy is good, there’s no problem. But since 2002, the formula has called for cuts in reimbursements to physicians, and for seven years in a row, Congress has stepped in at the last minute to reverse the cuts. But instead of paying for it, it simply moved the cuts to future years. Without some action by lawmakers on Medicare payment rates before the end of the year, physicians in Massachusetts will see a 21 percent reduction in reimbursements beginning January 1, 2010, according to the 2009 Medicare Trustees report. But it gets worse with time: under the SGR, more cuts are scheduled to take effect, reaching 40 percent by 2014. H.R. 3961 erases the cut, forgives the budget debt, and sets the stage for comprehensive payment reform. Critics are painting this bill as spawning irresponsible new spending, but in fact, it asks Congress to fulfill its 45-year commitment to funding senior health care. There is nothing new about this commitment. commonhealth.wbur.org mirrors the chronic pension underfunding problem swept under the rug by the regulators and Congress