This email is making the rounds to all the grass roots supporters of the American Medical Association:
AMA champion Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., has submitted her bill, S. 2785, otherwise known as the Save Medicare Act of 2008.
We need you to call or e-mail Senator Nelson and Senator Martinez TODAY. Urge them to co-sponsor S. 2785. Use the Patients Action Network Toll-free Hotline at (888) 434-6200.
Read what is being said around the country about the Medicare cuts of more than 10 percent that Sen. Stabenow is working to prevent:
• “The impact on people is going to be enormous,” said Gabe Fornari, MD, of Bluffton, S.C., in a recent article.
• A study referenced in the L.A. Daily News “said Medicare may even hinder seniors from getting the best care because of its low reimbursement rates…”
• In Tennessee the Chattanooga Times/Free Press wrote, “Some doctors already have decided to stop accepting new Medicare patients or to opt out of the program altogether, said Dr. Mack Worthington, a Chattanooga physician and president of the Tennessee Medical Association. ‘I think access has already been hurt to a degree, probably much more severely than we really know,’ he said.”
Now we need your help. We need you to call or e-mail Senator Nelson and Martinez TODAY. Urge them to co-sponsor S. 2785. Use the Patients Action Network Toll-free Hotline at (888) 434-6200.
For more information, go to the Patients Action Network. You can also listen to a new broadcast from Nancy H. Nielsen, MD, president-elect of the AMA, from her recent “house call” on Congress. Thank you for your continued interest and support on this important issue!
© AMA, Patient's Action Network | All Rights Reserved
Yep, you read it right: Medical providers, through their AMA sponsored grassroots lobbying groups, are now supporting Medicare and socialized medicine. Apparently, providers have decided that there is very likely to be greater government control of medical pricing than there already is: about 80% (see my article in/on the Conservative Voice.)
And I can't say as I blame them. Since WWII, we have allowed government to control more and more medical services via the single payer system. This in turn has prevented providers from competing in a free market--the optimal means of controlling costs and improving services. In our current system, with no means of differentiating the good from the bad, or even rewarding innovation, medical providers have chosen the only logical means of improving their situation: coalesce into groups, and spend money to influence those who decide the price: the legislators. Instead of the reward going to the best and most innovative, it will go to those who can propagandize and influence the best.
Not something that I want the quality of my medical care to be dependent on, personally.
|
