It was only a matter of time: Doctors Dumping Medicare and Medicaid
“With the cost of running a medical practice only going up on a daily basis, and reimbursement taking a dive, how can doctors running a solo practice keep accepting a payer that only continues to cut its reimbursement?” said Dr. Gil Holland, a family physician in Chandler, Ariz. “This is problem is far reaching because as Medicare cuts its fee schedule, other insurance payers tend soon to follow suit. Many of my colleagues in Arizona are dropping Medicare.”
Other quotes in the article include a desire to abandon medicine entirely. It’s shocking that we’re drifting toward a system that even the father of Canada’s socialized medicine admits has not worked:
“We thought we could resolve the system’s problems by rationing services or injecting massive amounts of new money into it,” says Castonguay. But now he prescribes a radical overhaul: “We are proposing to give a greater role to the private sector so that people can exercise freedom of choice.”
Castonguay advocates contracting out services to the private sector, going so far as suggesting that public hospitals rent space during off-hours to entrepreneurial doctors. He supports co-pays for patients who want to see physicians. Castonguay, the man who championed public health insurance in Canada, now urges for the legalization of private health insurance.
h/t Kevin MD
Photo credit: wallyg
