May ‘11
9
Republicans Get Help From Doctors In Increasing Health Care Costs
Twenty-six states have filed briefs in the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta asking the appellate court to uphold the decision of Federal Judge Roger Vinson of Florida declaring the ACA unconstitutional. Four more states have passed measures to prevent the laws implementation and New Hampshire voted to send back any federal money intended to implement the new law. Georgia’s M.D. Congressman Tom Price has introduced legislation in the House that will allow “balance billing” of Medicare patients. A practice which we outlawed in the Medicare Part A payment reforms of 1983 and which resulted in substantially reducing hospital charges across the country.
Dr. Price’s bill, like Paul Ryan’s Medicare voucher, is another way to pass costs of care on to Medicare beneficiaries and to help the medical industry avoid the discipline of improving quality of patient care. Florida’s Republican legislature also bought the Florida Medical Association support for contracting Medicaid out to private managed care organizations (which FL docs love to hate), by restricting the use of out-of-state expert medical witnesses in malpractice law suits. Florida Governor Rick Scott was not so lucky in trying to pack the Supreme Court with his own appointees when the legislature refused to approve his request that the Court be split into separate civil and criminal divisions. But only because five GOP lawyer-legislators agreed that politicizing the judiciary was not something they could stomach.
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