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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: i-node who wrote (607961)	4/16/2011 3:39:53 PM
From: Alighieri	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1583493

You contradict yourself in the same freaking sentence. The doctor's office makes more money because of it (which is correct), yet it allows Medicare to keeps it costs down (which it does not). Ok inode...I think your hatred for social programs disables part of your brain or causes you to deceive yourself...let's see if we can take you through this step by step: Problem You say that medicare is not paying doctors customary fees, so they are reluctant to take on medicare patients and/or they shuffle them off to their PAs when possible. Consequences a) Medicare is paying lower than customary fees...maybe not the best for doctors but certainly good for the finances of the program (ie: medicare saves money..that is it would be worse off if not for these mandated fees and we know it's already pretty bad off). b) Doctors continue to see patients with the help of their PAs, their pain lessens since they pay the PAs lower salaries and that leaves them with more time to see their non medicare patients. Medicare's fees remain lower than customary, that is good for the program (ie: medicare saves money). c) The pressure to raise repayment fees is lessened since the use of a PA is a cost containment measure for the doctor (ie: medicare saves money). d) PAs who work independently (this is not common by the way) receive reduced fees and once again medicare SAVES MONEY. e) Last but certainly not least, if the medicare program is privatized and doctor fees are normalized to industry customary, the cost of health care for seniors would go through the roof ie: a HUGE shift of cost to then participant seniors would result, since they are the most expensive patients in the demographic spectrum. If you think the AARP is not making these calculations now or if you think that the little trick of making this effective on 54 and younger lessens the AARP concern, then you and he are from Mars...which I have long suspected anyway. All of this contributes to my long held belief that the only solution to a nation's health needs is SINGLE PAYER. There is no way to straighten this mess out with all the competing interests of the various stake holders without a socialized medical system...the rest of the world has long since reached that conclusion...it's time for the regressives to get the hell out of the way of PROGRESS. Al