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May 18, 2010
Doctors Bail Out of Floundering Medicare
Posted by Dave Blount at May 18, 2010 10:45 AM
As Obama et al. greedily grab up control over ever more of the healthcare industry, Medicare gives an indication of how Big Government is managing what's already on it's plate. In Texas, doctors are bailing out in droves:
Two years after a survey found nearly half of Texas doctors weren't taking some new Medicare patients, new data shows 100 to 200 a year are now ending all involvement with the program. Before 2007, the number of doctors opting out averaged less than a handful a year.
"This new data shows the Medicare system is beginning to implode," said Dr. Susan Bailey, president of the Texas Medical Association. "If Congress doesn't fix Medicare soon, there'll be more and more doctors dropping out and Congress' promise to provide medical care to seniors will be broken."
More than 300 doctors have dropped the program in the last two years, including 50 in the first three months of 2010, according to data compiled by the Houston Chronicle. Texas Medical Association officials, who conducted the 2008 survey, said the numbers far exceeded their assumptions.
Apparently those 2,000 pages of ObamaCare don't include anything about making Medicare solvent. Like all major government entitlements, it is limping toward inevitable bankruptcy.
The uncertainty proved too much for Dr. Guy Culpepper, a Dallas-area family practice doctor who says he wrestled with his decision for years before opting out in March. It was, he said, the only way "he could stop getting bullied and take control of his practice."
"You do Medicare for God and country because you lose money on it," said Culpepper, a graduate of the University of Texas Medical School at Houston. "The only way to provide cost-effective care is outside the Medicare system, a system without constant paperwork and headaches and inadequate reimbursement."
The dysfunctional nature of Medicare has other consequences:
In a new Texas Medical Association survey, opting out was one of the least common options doctors have taken or are planning as a result of declining Medicare funding — behind increasing fees, reducing staff wages and benefits, reducing charity care and not accepting new Medicare patients.
In light of DNC mouthpiece Chris Matthews's recent demand that the government nationalize the energy sector, you can probably guess how our collectivist rulers will react to doctors refusing to take new Medicare patients because the system isn't profitable. Don't worry, doctors: government employees get all sorts of benefits.
On tips from TrickleUpPolitics, Conan, and Wingmann.
