Changing the Healthcare Paradigm: A Physician And Patient Centered Approach

I have been reading various articles and listening to pundits for months talk about healthcare reform. They have discussed ad nauseam everything from complete government takeover with single payer on one hand to free markets on the other.

Next week, we will be witness to the President’s healthcare forum. This is what we know so far:

• Tort reform is pretty much off the table.

The trial lawyers lobby has seen to that.

• There seems to be no political will to apply anti-trust regulations

This will continue to benefit the health insurance industry since they will be able to continue to run fiefdoms in various markets guaranteeing their market share and profits.

• The public option is really NOT an option.

If it does get implemented it will be a glorified version of Medicare Advantage where the program is administered by the insurance companies. A particularly sweet win-win situation for them since it means we will have to pay them whether we want private insurance or not.

• More taxes

We will be paying money into a governmental black hole for the next 4 years in the hopes that we will get inexpensive, comprehensive health coverage in the end. I have just two words about that – Medicare and Social Security (enough said).

• If you don’t like your insurance too bad

People who don’t like their private insurance plan will not be able to access the exchange system.

We are at a crossroads.

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Tags: Congress, Controlling healthcare costs, health insurance, Healthcare, Politics of healthcare
Posted Feb 18th 2010 at 8:41 am in Congress, Economics, Healthcare, Obama, Politics | 7702694 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/egeorge/2010/02/18/changing-the-healthcare-paradigm-a-physician-and-patient-centered-approach/Changing+the+Healthcare+Paradigm%3A+A+Physician+And+Patient+Centered+Approach2010-02-18+16%3A41%3A26Dr.+Elaina+++George

ObamaCare: We Get It – And We Don’t Want It

Healthcare reform will once again be coming to the forefront on February 25 when the President calls leaders from both parties for a healthcare summit.  The summit is a half-day meeting to solve the problems in healthcare that have persisted for decades.  The President will once again explain his plans for healthcare reform, after having apologized and accepted responsibility for not “explaining it more clearly to the American people.”

The President has already given 29 speeches explaining his party’s plans for healthcare reform.  The problem is not that the public does not understand the Senate or House proposals.  The public understands the proposals all too well:  a government takeover of healthcare with a price tag of $2.5 trillion over 10 years, giant slashes to the already under-funded Medicare, expansion of Medicaid, huge tax increases that would cost an estimated five million American jobs and stifle medical innovation, and individual mandates to purchase government-approved insurance plans just to name a few.  The American people understand these proposals and have soundly rejected them, as evidenced by the recent election in Massachusetts.

America is desperately in need of healthcare reform.  I have yet to meet a person who opposes the idea of healthcare reform.  The status quo is not a sustainable path.  But the reform we enact must be responsible and must maintain the quality and availability of care and the sanctity of the doctor-patient relationship.  Such responsible reform would include the following:

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Tags: health care reform, interstate health insurance, Medicaid, Medicare, ObamaCare
Posted Feb 16th 2010 at 8:07 am in Healthcare, Obama | 75886106 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/mneerhof/2010/02/16/we-get-it-and-we-dont-want-it/ObamaCare%3A+We+Get+It+%E2%80%93+And+We+Don%E2%80%99t+Want+It+2010-02-16+16%3A07%3A38Dr.+Mark+G.+Neerhof

Medicare Is Already Rationing Care

Rationing Medicare will not require clandestine meetings in smoke filled rooms. Simply reduce physician reimbursement to below the cost of delivering quality care, and free market forces will take care of the rest.

Medicare has already begun the process of backdoor rationing. Facing overwhelming budget shortfalls, Medicare needs to trim its books. Washington found a clever solution: eliminate the billing code for “physician consults.”

As a hospital physician, I often admit Medicare patients with chest pain or shortness of breath. If my patient needs urgent help from a cardiologist, I call a colleague for assistance.

Until December 31, 2009 the cardiologist could charge a “physician consult” fee for getting out of bed, coming to the hospital, and evaluating a patient with a potentially life threatening problem. Medicare paid $195.76 for this middle-of-the-night work (the same rate as when done during the day).

By eliminating the “physician consult” billing code, Medicare now advises the specialist to charge for a “hospital admission.” For two more months, Medicare will pay $175.67 for this service. However, without a change in current law, the physician’s reimbursement for a “hospital admission” will drop to $141.63 on March 1. This is why the “Doc Fix” is so important for working physicians and their Medicare patients.

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Tags: baby boomers, bending the cost curve, death panels, Doc Fix, health savings account
Posted Jan 4th 2010 at 8:13 am in Healthcare | 55062117 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/clgray/2010/01/04/medicare-is-already-rationing-care/Medicare+Is+Already+Rationing+Care2010-01-04+16%3A13%3A20Dr.+C.L.++Gray

“Gifted Hands” Surgeon Rips Into Obamacare

As the Senate Finance Committee completed its work on a bill that would greatly expand the government’s role in health care – requiring nearly everyone to buy insurance, and designing that insurance through subsidies and mandates – President Obama is trying to rally doctors to his side. At an event last week at the Rose Garden, phalanxed by doctors wearing their white coats (as well as some that White House staffers had handed out), Obama declared, “nobody has more credibility with the American people on this issue than you do.”

Dr. Benjamin Carson receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom

Yet one of the nation’s top surgeons, with credibility and acclaim the world over for the pioneering surgeries he has and his personal story of overcoming hardship, recently ripped the dominant health care legislation before Congress in a critique similar to that of conservatives and libertarians. Benjamin Carson, director of pediatric neurosurgery at the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions in Baltimore, Md., and recipient of numerous awards including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, criticized in a recent interview the approach of the current bills for their mandate, creation of a “public option,” and lack of malpractice liability reform. 

“My biggest problem is I feel it’s going in the wrong direction,” Carson told reporters at TV station WLOS in Asheville, N.C. (Video here.)“It’s giving us more government and less autonomy. And I think we should be going in exactly the opposite direction. We should be having more autonomy and less government. And that is the kind of thing that brings the prices down.”  (more…)

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Tags: Canadian Health Care, Cuba Gooding, Dr. Benjamin Carson, English Health Care, Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story
Posted Oct 14th 2009 at 5:45 am in Congress, Featured Story, Healthcare, Obama, Politics | 1609051 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/jberlau/2009/10/14/gifted-hands-surgeon-rips-into-obamacare/%E2%80%9CGifted+Hands%E2%80%9D+Surgeon+Rips+Into+Obamacare2009-10-14+12%3A45%3A32John+Berlau

An ObamaCare Alternative from the States

Earlier today Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty explained to BigGovernment.com readers how the Baucus health care plan is a prescription for higher taxes and higher premiums.

In keeping with the theme that good perspectives and ideas often come from the states, 33 state-based think tanks came together this morning to announce a health care reform alternative to ObamaCare.

“President Obama and other supporters of government-run health care like to proclaim that there’s no alternative to their plans,” said John Tillman, CEO of the Illinois Policy Institute. “Our patient-centered reform package offers a clear alternative that puts patients, not bureaucrats, first.  It protects the doctor-patient relationship, offers viable solutions for the uninsured, and keeps medical care affordable for all Americans.”

Patient-centered health care reform:

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Tags: Gov. Tim Pawlenty, health care mandates, Health Savings Accounts, Illinois Policy Institute, mandated coverage
Posted Oct 13th 2009 at 3:21 pm in Congress, Healthcare, Obama, Politics, State Politics | 1603861 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/krasmussen/2009/10/13/an-obamacare-alternative-from-the-states/An+ObamaCare+Alternative+from+the+States2009-10-13+22%3A21%3A51Kristina+Rasmussen

Obama votes “present” in health care debate.

Say what you will about the health reform bill introduced by Senator Max Baucus (D-MT), and the Left is having a field day attacking it, but at least it is a plan. President Obama has spent months talking about what he wants out of a bill, but when the chips are down and the polls are crashing, all we get from him is a two and half page outline.  Why would he offer such weak leadership?

One possible answer, for you cynics out there (and I may be one), is that he has zero leadership experience and this is simply his way of voting “present” one more time. But that’s too easy and too amateurish for someone so politically savvy.

The only logical answer is he doesn’t want to be pinned down on any specifics.  Sure, he’s talked about what he’d like in a bill, but he’s pretty much disavowed everything he’s said he supports too. He wants a public option one day, but doesn’t need one the next, then explains how it is vital to “real reform.” It literally can’t be both but that hasn’t stopped him from having it both ways.

So at this point, whenever anyone criticizes Obamacare the White House has the perfect defense, “There is no bill.” You can’t win a shadow boxing match, you can’t pick a lock with mashed potatoes, and you can’t pin any unpopular proposals on the President.

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Tags: George Bush, Kanye West, Max Baucus, Medicare, Obama
Posted Sep 18th 2009 at 7:00 am in Congress, Healthcare, Obama, Politics | 443462 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/dhunter/2009/09/18/obama-votes-present-in-health-care-debate/Obama+votes+%22present%22+in+health+care+debate.2009-09-18+14%3A00%3A18Derek+Hunter