We reported this would happen a few weeks ago. I BEG you to send this to EVERYONE that you know that is currently on or soon will be on Medicare:
Doctors across America are sick. A new and desperate plight has surfaced in emergency rooms across the nation for both patients and doctors alike. The following blog by one valiant doctor speaks for thousands of doctors being forced to go against their natural instincts and abilities to allow further hospital care and re-admit patients writes Sharon Sebastian. (h/t Chip)
Effective October 2012, doctors at hospitals across the land are being forced by the Obama administration to break their Hippocratic Oath. Obama’s revamped Medicare has now begun forcing doctors at hospitals to turn their backs on patients no matter how critical their need for re-admittance. Obamacare has activated a mandate through Medicare that will cost thousands of lives and serves as the precursor to Obama’s inhumane and authoritarian Death Panels.
The following excerpts are used with permission from the blog of Dr. Thomas Hamilton (LINK/LINK), an American doctor who speaks truth to power. Dr. Hamilton describes how he was torn between providing medical help to a very sick senior or turning her away to face a certain and tragic fate without treatment.
“It was my plan to admit this woman to the hospital. I found out a little later that this same woman had been a patient here just slightly more than 2 weeks ago with a DIFFERENT DIAGNOSIS. I was told that if this woman was admitted, the hospital would not be paid.
The new Medicare rule now is that if the same Medicare patient is re-admitted to the hospital within 30 days, the hospital will not be paid. When they first started this nonsense they said this only applied to patients with the same diagnosis. Now they have “expanded” the rule to include re-admissions for any reason. So if you’re in the hospital for pneumonia, and 3 weeks later, you break your leg…….too bad. Medicare will not pay the hospital to fix your leg.
A little later a man was brought in by ambulance, very sick, in pain, and near death. I did my usual evaluation and treatment, doing my best to ease pain and stabilize this man’s illness. He needed to be admitted. To my chagrin I found out that he had been treated for the SAME problem at a DIFFERENT HOSPITAL about 10 days prior. If I admitted this man, our hospital would be paid nothing. I admitted the man.
My friends I am caught in a terrible position. I could have given treatment to both of these people and sent them out. There is no doubt that both of them would have died. Oh, I could also be sued for malpractice, but nobody cares about that.
The good doctor goes on to explain:
“As more and more are added to the Obamacare rolls, there will be less and less access. People will get sicker and yes, people will die because of it. I had a sick and sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach today after both of these incidents. We have a good hospital. Our nurses, technicians, and support staff work very hard and they deserve to be paid for their efforts. I am not so worried about myself as I am near retirement, but I worry for all the younger folks in the healthcare business and I worry about our seniors who are in the long run going to be sacrificed as the government implements cost cutting shenanigans to cover up their broken promise made way back in 1964.
In a recent article, SICK – NO APPEAL – IT’S OBAMACARE, I wrote:
“Slashed doctors’ pay, reduced services to patients of all ages and medical devices and testing equipment made by cheap overseas labor are cutting-block initiatives by the Obama government. Already targeted are our most defenseless — our mentally and physically disabled in institutionalized care who require the most medical assistance at a higher cost? Obamacare is not about care. It is not about using America’s advanced medical skills and technology, the finest in the world, to save lives of Americans regardless of race, age or class. It is about control. It is a power play that takes over one eighth of the U.S. economy. If not repealed, it is the unveiling of how a once great medical system became an ugly and deadly government-run ‘business’ in America.”
It is incomprehensible how Barack Obama can throw billions of dollars at political cronies, irresponsible unions, failed and bankrupt “green” projects, elaborate vacations, contraceptives, sterilizations and abortions-on-demand when those critical dollars could go towards improving medical care for all Americans from newborns to seniors. Under Obamacare, average Americans and their families are targeted. Where is Obama’s oft-repeated demand for “fairness” and an “equal playing field” when he cunningly exempts himself, his elitist friends and political cronies from the perils of his signature law — Obamacare?
The follow up to this story is here: http://thedifferencesofus.com/2012/10/22/ntkn-disbelieve-at-your-own-peril/
Reblogged this on BPI reblog and commented:
And So the Rationing Begins
Since posting this article early today I have been receiving comments from some of you articulating what your family has been having to deal with. PLEASE, keep sending those comments. On Tuesday I will recap for our readers what has been taking place since the beginning of October via your testimony. If you are a doctor, please send us your comments on how this new law is affecting/effecting your practice and patients.
Lisa
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My mother had a stroke about twelve days go. The ER was crowded and there wasn’t a room for her, so they put her in an observation room for two nights and then admitted her as a patient for night. She probably should have gone to a nursing home or rehab, but the Medicare rules say she has to be have been admitted for three nights for Medicare to cover it. Nice, eh?
Sally, so what happened?
Sally, after today, I bet she would of been put in a Nursing home………
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The law is to prevent hospitals from releasing a patient too early!!! If she comes back with a different diagnosis, the hospital WILL be paid. I read the bill, and understood it, you would think a doctor would have the brains to read it, too.
Actually the law is to cut down on waste and spending. It has been billed as an ‘efficiency’ proponent of the bill. As to the ‘different diagnosis’, sadly this is not true anymore. The original bill did in fact state ‘different diagnosis will be paid’ but thanks to some ‘tweaking’ it’s no longer true. A large percentage of the hospitals suffered abnormally high readmission rates of which they had little or no control. Despite this well-known fact, readmissions are counted against the facility just the same.
What Are Some of the Causes for Readmissions?
• Senior patients often get readmitted for unrelated reasons to the original admission. An example of this would be a patient who had an inpatient stay for a cardiac event. Several days after discharge, the same patient is in the yard and falls, breaking a hip and then is readmitted for care. Regardless of the fact that it is an unrelated event, it still counts as a readmission for that hospital. (This is one area that many hospital executives are fighting with Congress/CMS as it does not appear to meet “true readmission” criteria.)
• Planned readmissions are counted as part of the criteria. Planned readmissions include chemotherapy patients, conditions identified that require surgery, but is not emergent, a patient may have the surgery scheduled for a later date, and be discharged. When the patient checks back in for the surgery, that patient is counted against the hospital.
• Safety Net Hospitals serve the poor/indigent population with no means for follow up care often suffer from illnesses such as: obesity, smoking, alcohol and drug abuse, all chronic illnesses with multiple hospitalizations.
http://www.medicalbillingandcoding.org/blog/wildcard-wednesdays-rage-against-readmissions/
Still the bottom line question to all opponents of Obamacare (and with the understanding that bugs no doubt still have to be worked out as was the case when Medicare was new): how does one afford private insurance if it is not supplied by an employer or the government? Simply going to an emergency room as Romney recently suggested is not a very good solution to middle class people who have to then pay the bill, often with their homes or children’s education funds. Conservatives, please tell me what should be done, and none of that 47% are “losers” garbage, please!
Fair question although I do not consider being denied service as ‘a bug’. However, to answer your question the ObamaCare bill is more than 2,400 pages long, relies on a dense web of regulations, fees, subsidies, excise taxes, exchanges, and rule-setting boards to give the federal government extraordinary control over every corner of the health care system. The costs are commensurate: Obamacare added a trillion dollars in new health care spending. To pay for it, the law raised taxes by $500 billion on everyone from middle-class families to innovative medical device makers, and then slashed $500 billion from Medicare.
Obamacare was unpopular when passed, and remains unpopular today, because the American people recognize that a government takeover is the wrong approach. While Obamacare may create a new health insurance entitlement, it will only worsen the system’s existing problems. When was the last time a massive government program lowered cost, improved efficiency, or raised the consistency of service? Obamacare will violate that crucial first principle of medicine: “do no harm.” It will make America a less attractive place to practice medicine, discourage innovators from investing in life-saving technology, and restrict consumer choice.
In short, President Obama’s trillion dollar federal takeover of the U.S. health care system is a disaster for the federal budget, a disaster for the constitutional principles of federalism, and a disaster for the American people.
According to MITT’S PLAN
On his first day in office, Mitt Romney will issue an executive order that paves the way for the federal government to issue Obamacare waivers to all fifty states. He will then work with Congress to repeal the full legislation as quickly as possible.
In place of Obamacare, Mitt will pursue policies that give each state the power to craft a health care reform plan that is best for its own citizens. The federal government’s role will be to help markets work by creating a level playing field for competition.
Restore State Leadership and Flexibility
Mitt will begin by returning states to their proper place in charge of regulating local insurance markets and caring for the poor, uninsured, and chronically ill. States will have both the incentive and the flexibility to experiment, learn from one another, and craft the approaches best suited to their own citizens.
Block grant Medicaid and other payments to states
Limit federal standards and requirements on both private insurance and Medicaid coverage
Ensure flexibility to help the uninsured, including public-private partnerships, exchanges, and subsidies
Ensure flexibility to help the chronically ill, including high-risk pools, reinsurance, and risk adjustment
Offer innovation grants to explore non-litigation alternatives to dispute resolution
Promote Free Markets and Fair Competition
Competition drives improvements in efficiency and effectiveness, offering consumers higher quality goods and services at lower cost. It can have the same effect in the health care system, if given the chance to work.
Cap non-economic damages in medical malpractice lawsuits
Empower individuals and small businesses to form purchasing pools
Prevent discrimination against individuals with pre-existing conditions who maintain continuous coverage
Facilitate IT interoperability
Empower Consumer Choice
For markets to work, consumers must have the information and the power to make decisions about their own care. Placing the patient at the center of the process will drive quality up and cost down while ensuring that services are designed to provide what Americans actually want.
End tax discrimination against the individual purchase of insurance
Allow consumers to purchase insurance across state lines
Unshackle HSAs by allowing funds to be used for insurance premiums
Promote “co-insurance” products
Promote alternatives to “fee for service”
Encourage “Consumer Reports”-type ratings of alternative insurance plans
Please forgive this late reply to the reply. In the meantime, Obama won and Obamacare is in the works. Having said that, I think such terms as “waiver” worried the majority of voters, especially in light of the Ryan idea of waivers for Medicare (clearly a means of destroying that program). That suggests that many will also be excluded or will not be fully covered in the state-by-state idea you propose and that is so loved by conservatives. By the way, there are plenty of exclusions and denials in the present private medical insurance companies as virtually any patient will be able to report, whether or not they pay dearly for the income sucking premiums. So why is private, if one can afford it, so much more wonderful than federal coverage? And let’s not forget pre-conditions for a quick denial. I can’t see where private would truly trump govt. on this. I’m happy to pay a little more taxes to bring about a fair national health program. I suspect that state-to-state autonomies would present as many, if not more, problems than would national plans. What if one has to move from a state like MA with a good plan to some medically deadbeat state? This reminds me of states’ rights arguments over federal enactments in the past regarding civil rights. Conservative “solutions” always seem to go on the cheap when it comes to the rank and file citizen and have swindles quietly tucked inside.