WHY DOCS FEAR GOVERNMENT 'HELP'

The healthcare overhaul will no doubt diminish your ability to get the high quality health care services that we have enjoyed here in America. Here is an article from a doctor explaining how he can no longer serve Medicare and Medicaid patients. How will doctors react to having to treat patients under the new government run health system when their compensation will be dictated by Washington?-Lou

Physicians fear that near-mindless efforts to find cost savings . . . will damage our very ability to practice.

WONDERING why the American Medical Association came out against a "public option" in health reform -- that is, against government-offered health insurance for every American? For this MD, at least, it's a simple matter of learning from experience.

As a practicing internist, I've been dealing with two government insurance programs, Medicare and Medicaid, for more than two decades. Over the years, I've seen the government shrink reimbursements under first Medicaid and then Medicare -- to the point that, in 2005, I finally decided that I couldn't stay in business unless I stopped taking Medicaid patients, and saw no more than a few Medicare patients each day.

It was costing me more to file the Medicaid paperwork than I got back from the government. I now either charge Medicaid patients a few dollars, or just see them for free.

It's getting tougher to take Medicare patients, too: New drugs and new technologies are wonderful health-care tools -- but keeping current, and making sure to choose the right tool, uses up more and more of my time. Yet Medicare's reimbursement for my efforts keeps on shrinking.

I'm not alone. Each year, I find I have fewer specialists to refer my Medicare patients to. The best mammographer I know no longer accepts Medicare, so I find myself trying to persuade my patients to see her anyway (and pay $300-plus out of pocket) because she's so good.

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