I find it interesting that thefederal government thinks Medicaid expansion is the answer when the number ofdoctors who accept Medicaid has decreased as the following numbers show.
2000 – 67%
2010 – 42%
2012 – 31%
Source: Dr. Mark Shelton,Facebook Post
Dr. Michael Burgess, U.S. House District 26 of Texas, explains why doctors are abandoningtheir practices, or refusing Medicaid patients. (See C-SPAN). In essence, theMedicaid reimbursement rates are too small. And with the anticipated expansionof Medicaid rolls under the Affordable Healthcare Act, they fear the medicalcare market would be flooded with poor patients, and fewer doctors willing tosee them.
In 2009, in a one-on-one overcoffee, Michael Burgess and EddieGriffin debated the healthcare bill which was being drafted and reviewed atthat time. Eddie Griffin was the first to point out typos and other flaws inthe original 1400-page bill, before it was rushed through the Congress andenacted as a 2700-page tome, known as “Obamacare” (socialized medicine, as some would say)
In the exchange, Griffinpleaded the case of The Unborn atrisk of being born with a “pre-existing condition” like the Blue Baby. In his C-SPANinterview on yesterday, Michael Burgess discusses his ideas about babies beingborn with pre-existing conditions. And still he has no solution for the Blue Baby,except a high-risk insurance pool, regulated by the state.
But there is irony in what Burgesssays about healthcare access. Justbecause people have a healthcare plan, it does not mean that they have accessto healthcare coverage. Having Medicaid did not guarantee that patientswould receive medical attention, as there will be fewer and fewer doctorswilling to take new patients, as more and more patients come into thehealthcare system under the Affordable Health Care Act.
Millionaire doctors are inrevolt, some threatening to shut down their offices, some threatening to leavethe country and practice elsewhere.
Dr. Burgess asked: “Why vilify the doctors? These are the verypeople that you need.” Good doctors? Yes. Bad, greedy doctors? No.
With over 650,000 doctors nowin the Top 1% of the income bracket, and 20% of doctors now in the Top 2%, howcan anybody ask why healthcare cost has gone through the roof?
Millionaire Doctors aregetting rich off their practices in a number of exploitative ways, from pushingpills for the pharmaceutical companies, to worthless treatments and unnecessarysurgeries, to plugging the plug on terminal patients when coverage runs out, limitingtheir own medical tort liability, while forcing some patients to mortgage theirhomes to pay their medical bills, these doctors maximize profit over care.
They vilify themselves whenthe take the Hypocrisy Oath instead of the Hippocratic Oath.
We have all had family membersbled by the system for premiums and later dropped, for some technical excuse ofother, written in a policy nobody could read and understand in the first place.
Simplification and streamliningthe system is necessary. Maybe that might mean that some of these millionaire doctorsneed to shut down their operations for the betterment of the overall healthcaresystem, if they refuse care to the “poorest of the poor” just because it doesnot pay enough.
We have often disputedwhether healthcare was a right or a privilege, whereby Burgess believes thelatter. And, since introducing him to the plight of the helpless unborn and uncovered,he has worked diligently to provide a fix, without having to rewrite another2700-page Republican alternative.
And just when he puts thefinal touches on his alternative to introduce to the Republican-dominated Houseof Representative, and in anticipation of, at least, a partial victory from theSupreme Court, the Roberts’ ruling was “not exactly” as he wished. Translated,Justice Roberts threw a monkey wrench into his alternatives.
The Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act is the law of theland. That meant Burgess’ Republican alternative plan has to be altered.
Therefore, at a nexus intime, when the Republican proposed to outright kill “Obamacare”, there is noalternative on the table, only a promise from Burgess that one will be readybefore the month is out.
TOO LITTLE, TOO LATE
The law is in effect. And, itwill be defended. And, not until the Blue Baby is provided affordable healthcare coverage, pregnant mothers, elderly, and terminally ill, without caps ofcoverage, and patients without denial due to poverty, will we rest in thedefense of this Act.
Eddie G. Griffin (BASG)
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