Sucks to be on Medicare!

Unless congress can get their acts together and do something fast, Monday is going to be a very bad time to be a medicare patient! On Monday, a 21.2% cut in physician reimbursements will go into effect. There are already plenty doctors out there who don't take medicare or who are decreasing the number of patients they have on Medicare. But, if this goes into effect, it's going to be very bad. The AMA is already telling physicians how to help their patients find new doctors and physicians have already asked for handouts they can give to patients that they drop. When this happens, Medicare patients are going to be forced to go to clinics where it's hard to get appointments, you wait forever, and you get less attention. And please do not think that this is because doctors are greedy. Rather, it's because doctors are already not getting paid enough money, particularly in primary care (especially considering the quarter million dollars of debt you come out of med school with). If they have to take this cut, many will not be able to even remain profitable.

Situations like this are exactly why there is going to be an enormous shortage of primary care physicians in the future, and patient care is going to suffer for it. And, this is exactly why US healthcare could not ever survive with a nationalized government healthcare plan. The government already cannot manage the much smaller medicare program...the last thing they need it control over anything else! Once again, thank you Massachusetts!!

Update: so it looks as though this will wind up not really being a problem. Apparently the vote today had to be unanimous, so it didn't pass because one guy insisted on voting against it (there are some other things tucked in there, of course, that he didn't agree with). However, it will be able to have a real vote on Tuesday, where it will almost certainly pass, and things should carry on with little to no interruption. Good news for doctors, as well as people on COBRA or unemployment (other areas touched by this bill). Still, Washington really needs to get their collective heads out of their asses