Where were the rest of the doctors?

The “meeting” on the White House lawn this Monday with President Obama and 150 doctors, (who, at the time, looked much like potted plants, if I do say so myself), would lead one to believe that doctors support Obamacare. Perhaps those 150 doctors do, but many of the rest were elsewhere.

They were lobbying against a key provision of the Baucus Unaffordable Health Care Bill that will “save money”, but cost many seniors needed health care in the process.  Yes, AARP should have been lobbying against this provision, but, apparently, they don’t care.

To reduce the costs of Medicare, Senator Baucus (D. Mt.) has come up with this nifty idea.

Medicare would rank doctors against their peers based on how much they cost the program—and then automatically cut all payments by 5% to [any doctor] who falls into the 90th percentile or above.

Here is how this insanity would work.

Let’s say Doctor “A” has many patients who are very sick, and Doctor” B”, and eight of his colleagues have many patients who are healthy.  In order for Doctor “A” to treat his sick patients, he or she will have to order a great deal of medical care to treat them, thus costing Medicare money.  Dr. “B”, and his eight colleagues, on the other hand will not cost Medicare very much money because their patients just happen to be healthy.

At the end of the year, Dr. “A” will see his Medicare payments reduced by 5%, but Dr. “B” and his eight collegues will see no reduction in their Medicare payments.

What happens the following year?

Dr. “A” decides to “downsize” his practice giving his sickest patients a “pink slip”.  I wonder where those patients will go?  I guess Sen. Baucus doesn’t care.

Dr. “B” and his eight colleagues, after seeing what happened to Dr. “A”, begin to cut back on the treatment they give to their patients, lest they become the doctor whose reimbursements are cut for that year.  And, this cycle continues.  As the Wall Street Journal points out, this is like a game of musical chairs.  There will always only be nine chairs and, there will always be ten doctors.  Someone always must lose.

Here, the loser is any senior on Medicare.

Ironic, isn’t it, that the Democrats are so concerned about the bogus “45,000 deaths per year ” because of the lack of insurance, and, they don’t give a wit about the real folks who have insurance…with Medicare?