No one is going to lose their health plan. Really?? (I lost mine.)
Both sides of this debate need a plan to follow the Supreme Court decision, either way, next month.
http://bostonherald.com/news/opinion/op_ed/view/20220529obamacare_diagnosed_as_quackery_court_congress_advised_to_quash_itObamacare diagnosed as quackery
Court, Congress advised to quash it
By Sally C. Pipes
Tuesday, May 29, 2012 - Updated 1 day ago
The Supreme Court hasn’t yet rendered its verdict on Obamacare, but the nation’s doctors have. And they think it will wreck America’s health care system.
The latest evidence comes from a new survey of young doctors by the Physicians Foundation. Nearly 60 percent of doctors aged 40 and under are pessimistic about the future of American health care. Just 22 percent are optimistic.
The number-one reason doctors cited for their pessimism? Obamacare, which was singled out by more than a third. Add in related concerns — like distrust of government to do the right thing and the feeling that government intervention hurts patient care — and the docs’ hostility to Obamacare becomes even more intense.
When asked specifically for their diagnosis of Obama- care, just 23 percent say it will have a positive impact on their practice. Half say the effect will be negative.
These findings line up with an earlier survey of doctors by consulting firm Deloitte, which found that two-thirds of all doctors expect the quality of health care to decline under Obama- care.
Physician pessimism is understandable, as Obama- care’s promises are crumbling even before the law takes full effect.
For example, Americans were promised repeatedly that they could keep their insurance if they liked it. But the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) now admits that as many as 20 million people could lose their employer-provided coverage and have to buy insurance on government-run exchanges.
Obamacare was also supposed to bend the health care cost curve down, but the government now estimates that it will add more than $300 billion to the nation’s health tab over the next decade. According to the CBO, the cost of the law over the decade commencing in 2010 has risen to $1.76 trillion — almost double the original estimate of $940 billion.
Why should doctors trust that Obama- care’s other promises about improving the quality of care will be any more reliable? After all, Obamacare contains several provisions expressly designed to limit doctors’ ability to effectively treat their patients.
Take the law’s Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs). These integrated networks of health care providers are supposed to improve the coordination of Medicare patients’ care by bringing multiple doctors under one roof.
Improved communication among doctors should lead to less waste and lower costs — or so the theory goes.
But according to the Cleveland Clinic — one of the health systems that inspired the ACOs — the administration’s rules are “replete with prescriptive requirements that have little to do with outcomes” and “detailed governance and reporting requirements that create significant administrative burdens.”
In other words, ACOs will effectively dictate to doctors how they must treat their patients.
Or consider the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB). The board has broad authority to force Medicare to meet pre-set spending targets.
But the panel cannot make any changes to Medicare’s fee-for-service structure or adjust the level of benefits that seniors receive. So the board has only one legitimate option for getting Medicare spending under the targets — lowering reimbursement rates for doctors, nurses and hospitals.
Lower reimbursements may cause some providers to reduce the number of Medicare patients they’ll see — or refuse to treat them altogether.
Already, some doctors are shutting their doors to senior citizens. An American Medical Association survey found that nearly a third of primary care physicians restrict the number of Medicare patients they will see.
Another Obamacare creation, the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, will be just as destructive as IPAB. It is supposed to improve health care quality by comparing the effectiveness of different treatments.
But this “outcomes research” will likely be used to create top-down treatment guidelines that physicians will be expected to follow in order to get paid — even if the recommendations contradict their judgment of what’s best for a particular patient.
Such research led federal officials to recommend three years ago that women avoid getting regular mammograms in their 40s, even though breast cancer is the leading cause of death in women aged 35 to 50.
The Supreme Court could invalidate Obamacare in its entirety this June, when it renders its verdict on the law’s constitutionality. If it doesn’t, then Congress will need to heed the warning coming from the nation’s doctors that Obamacare is the wrong prescription for the nation’s health care system.
Sally C. Pipes is president and CEO of the Pacific Research Institute.
