SINCE the American Medical Association has thrown its sup port behind the House version of President Obama’s health-care bill, I’ve decided not to renew my membership. I’m sure I’m not alone.
The AMA and its president, Dr. J. James Rohack, are either naive or disingenuous when they say they hope this bill will lead to the preservation of Medicare and Medicaid payments to physicians and hospitals. It’s clear that Congress’ “reforms” are headed in exactly the opposite direction.
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Consider that the American Hospitals Association has agreed to accept $155 billion in Medicare and Medicaid cuts in return for a seat at the Obama table. This, despite the fact that the vast majority of patients covered by Medicare and Medicaid can only receive essential services at hospitals — which have networks of physicians precisely to take care of these patients.
Creating a “public option” health-insurance policy (a key feature in all the current plans) spells disaster for doctors. It will inevitably lead to government rationing of care — that is, bureaucrats deciding that a given procedure or drug costs “too much” — even if it’s the most effective care for that patient.
It also risks having the government decide that a given patient — e.g., a sickly senior citizen — isn’t worth further expensive care.
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How so? Simple: If the government is offering insurance, it will have to try to control costs — indeed, cost control is the “virtue” that Obama most often promises for his reforms. And every country that has adopted some form of national health insurance has eventually opted to deny treatment in the name of cutting costs.
In my medical office and in offices throughout the country, doctors are already hamstrung by Medicare and Medicaid — whose reimbursements keep shrinking, even as our costs for providing care inevitably rise as medicine develops new treatments.
I don’t think most people yet realize that their health care will be compromised as the rising costs and shrinking reimbursements imposed by “reform” drive doctors and hospitals to the brink (at least) of going out of business.
The AMA, of all organizations, should understand the difference between health insurance and health care — that is, that having insurance doesn’t equal access to care.
Just as car insurance won’t help you if there are no repair shops around, having Medicaid doesn’t mean you can find a doctor to take care of you — and a recent survey shows that more than half of doctors don’t accept Medicaid.
It’s mind-boggling that the AMA would betray its members by backing growing government control of health insurance, when this is sure to squeeze doctors into retiring or turning their practice into low-quality “Medicaid mills.”
Do we want the several-month waiting lines for hip replacements, brain and gall-bladder surgery that exist in Canada?
My answer is the same as all my patients’: No. Marc K. Siegel is a prac ticing internist, an associ ate professor of medicine at NYU Langone Medical Center and a Fox News medical contributor.