Going to Washington

Notwithstanding the American Medical Association’s high-profile endorsement of the new law, there is deep discontent among physicians over ObamaCare.

Grace Marie Turner, founder and president of Galen Institute.Why Obamacare is Wrong for America (2011)

No matter how we reform health care, we will keep this promise.  If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor.  Period.  If you like your health plan, you will be able to keep your health plan. Period.  No one will take it away. No matter what.

President Barack Obama, June 15, 2009m speech before American Medical Association.

May 2, 2012 – So much for President Obama’s broken promises.

A Physicians Foundation Survey in August 2010 indicated 60% of doctors will close or restrict their practices to certain categories of patients,  93% will stop seeing or restrict Medicaid patients,  87% will close or restrict Medicare patients.  And 80 to 100 million Americans will be forced to switch health plans  in order to enter plans meeting federal standards .

Moreover, 89% of physicians say they believe private practice is threatened or will cease to exist.  Hospitals already own more than half of medical practices,  Under the new law, because of declining reimbursements and exploding red tape, many physicians, perhaps 30%, will be compelled to stop seeing Medicare patients, drop out of practice, or go bankrupt.

Why am I telling you this? 
Because next week, on May 8, I will be boarding a train to Washington.

There I will do two things: one.  I will attend a national innovation meeting hosted by the Galen Institute, a conservative free-market think tank.  

Its president, Grace Marie Turner, along with three other imminent Washington insiders,  James C, Capretta, associate director or the Office of Management and Budget from 2001-2002; Thomas P. Miller, resident fellow of the American Enterprise Institute; and Robert Emmett Moffitt, senior fellow of the Heritage Foundation and senior office of HHS under President Reagan. have written a hard hitting book: Why Obamacare Is Wrong for America:  How the New Health Law Drives Up Costs, Puts Government in Charge of Your Decisions, and Threatens Your Constitutional Rights (Broadside, An Imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, 2011).

The title of the book speaks for itself. 

I am reading it prior  to giving a talk on May 9 before the Physicians Insurance Institute  of America, which provides most of the malpractice insurance for physicians. 

My talk is still in flux, so I shall not bother you with its contents.  But you may want to read the book, especially its chapter , “Impact on You and Your Doctors.  That chatper contains these sections.

1.     1/ Health Care Reform: Bad for Doctors, Awful for Patients.

2.       Will You Be Able to Keep Your Doctor

3.      Health Care Rules Will Rule Your Doctor

4.      More Government Health Plan Rules Will Rule Over Doctors

5.      Comply or Else

6.      Harming the Doctor-Patient Relationship

7.      Exacerbating the Physician Shortage

8.      Decreasing the Supply of Doctors

9.      Deterring Young People from Pursuing Medicine as a Profession

1.  Trouble Getting Care under Medicare

1    The Unsolved Medicare Problem

1   Patient-Centered Outcomes Research

1    Controls on Future Medicare Payments.

Need I say more.  The picture presented  is gloomy.  In my talk, I shall say there is always gloom for improvement.

Tweet:  Next week, I will travel to Washington  to attend an innovation conference, hosted by Galen Institute, and deliver a talk before the Physicians Insurance Association of America.