Friday - April 16, 2010

My Doctor, My Slave

News Item: Obama Signs $18 Billion Unemployment Benefit Extension Bill

Yeah, so what? Another payout plan based on money the government doesn’t have. Give the RECENTLY out of work folks another year or two of benefits. WTF, give them 5 years. 10 years. Who cares?

PS - casually riding along on this bill is a measure to get Medicaid payment back up to their previously poor payment levels. While the news is saying that they were “threatening” to lower them 21%, I know for a fact from 3 doctors in my area that the payments dropped 21-23% the MOMENT obamacare passed. Of course, that was AFTER their employee health insurance premiums went up a full THIRD at the end of the year, in expectation of obamacare passing.

So the government can pay whatever they feel like on Medicaid payments. Which is why we had that bit of story last week with the doctor who put the “take your business elsewhere” sign in his office. Many doctors refuse Medicaid. It’s a hassle, and a money loosing proposition, and they have all sorts of flaming hoops to jump through when treating one of those patients just to avoid getting sued.

So how would you like to be a doctor in a state ... or a country ... that REQUIRES you to accept Medicaid patients at any and all times AS A CONDITION OF LICENSING?

A bill currently under review by the state Senate in Massachusetts will make participation in the state and federal Medicare/Medicaid programs a condition of medical licensure, effectively making physicians employees of the state:

Every health care provider licensed in the commonwealth which provides covered services to a person covered under “Affordable Health Plans” must provide such service to any such person, as a condition of their licensure, and must accept payment at the lowest of the statutory reimbursement rate, an amount equal to the actuarial equivalent of the statutory reimbursement rate, or the applicable contract rate with the carrier for the carrier’s product offering with the lowest level benefit plan available to the general public within the Connector, other than the young adult plan, and may not balance bill such person for any amount in excess of the amount paid by the carrier pursuant to this section, other than applicable co-payments, co-insurance and deductibles.

So what this means is that in order for doctors to become licensed in Massachusetts, they will have to agree to accepting the payment rates imposed by the government, even though those payments may not cover their actual expenses for the care rendered.

I’d call it slavery. Some form of indentured servitude at the very least. Because there is NOTHING that is a) going to stop the feds from passing such a requirement, b) having passed it, they can then drop the Medicaid/Obamacaid payment to whatever they want, even ZERO, and c) once every employer in the country drops their employee health plans, as you know that they pretty much have to do out of economic necessity, thus forcing all their employees - ie, all of us - to sign up for Obamacare/caid/public option health insurance, then we’re all on the same bandwagon. Which means that everyone is now on the government plan, which means that doctors will now be paid whatever the government wants for every single patient they see.

Which is really no different than indentured servitude if the government pays them anything. And it’s slavery if the government pays them nothing. But they can’t turn any patients away, ever. And they probably won’t allowed to quit either.

Socialism, Communism, Fascism, Obamunism. Call it whatever you want, it’s all the same: an all powerful government, with a tyrant in charge.

How’s that for Change You Can Believe In working for you? Give up Hope yet, sucka?

Oh, and since the government now owns the means of production and the means of finance, and the president seems to have the power to fire the head of GM when he felt like it, what the effity-eff makes you think that this kind of salary capping won’t extend to whatever other industry the government wants it to? Bankers, brokers, executives, washroom attendants. Anybody. As long as they don’t belong to a union I guess.

See how easy it is to gain momentum and take all the other boulders with you once you leap over the edge and start the avalanche? 

Posted by Drew458     on 04/16/2010 at 02:05 PM   
Filed Under: • Health-Medicine • Obama, The One •  
• Comments (2) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

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