Dear Congress:
I wanted to write you to tell you how proud I am of you. You’ve worked so hard on health care reform and focusing on what matters to Americans. Your beautifully conducted Health Care Summit, live before the C-SPAN cameras (finally) was a welcomed site. I have such a better grasp of the issues now. Thank you. You folks are awesome.
I did notice that both sides seem to be entrenched over what to do going forward – at least on camera. Everyone wants everyone to have insurance, but that thorny issue of costs keeps raising its head. Dog gone it. There always seems to be something to serve as a spoiler when real discussions take place in this health care reform debate.
But take heart. There is a way to fix all of the problems encountered with health care reform and I think you know what that the answer is: cut the doctor’s Medicare payments, already only 80% of costs, by another 21%.
We, your ever-ready and willing sycophants think that’s a great idea.
Knowing that we can be “team players” that are willing to take a leading role in health care reform will finally cement our image as omni-beneficent. People will finally be able to see through the media stories (transcript) that aired the day before the Health Care Summit about doctors as sexual predators. (video here). As Rahm Emmanuel said, “"You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before." We as physicians are happy to do our part to counter these "systemic" problems with doctors. Thank you.
Now just so you know, we might have to make some eentsy–teensy–weentsy adjustments to how we do things, but it’s all be good. Really. Don’t worry. We’re innovators and entrepreneurs after all. We’ll figure out a way to curb inflation. We’ll lower the costs of staffing and equipment. And we’ll even single-handedly take ourselves off your payroll to lighten your load.
And it will all be good.
I mean, what could go wrong?
-Wes
Ah yes, COSTS it is!
ReplyDeleteThe HC session started with a Senator/doctor saying that waste, fraud and abuse costs are $1 out of every $3 spent; so which part or parts do you think doctors cause or better yet can prevent?
Would Tort Reform solve the malpractice issue or just lower malpractice insurance? Most states already have caps on these matters.
Is perhaps the costs of all medical supplies and drugs too high? We all know we pay twice as much for drugs now made in other countries so the manufacturers can get tax breaks as well as charge whatever they want in only one country-Ours!
Since our President makes deals with them to keep our prices high, how about the Docs looking at their prescribing habits and prescribe the most cost effective drugs rather tha the ones they sample their patients with or the patient sees on TV ads.
If the vast number of patients are paid for by the government now, how much more do you think they will pay when all of us are covered by government heathcare?
It probably doesn't matter for unless we stop the waste, fraud and abuse we will have no care at all!