Second Opinions Doctors Divide on Bill
Even though the American Medical Association offered qualified support for the Senate health care bill this week, many other medical groups are unqualified in their opposition.
A coalition representing 240,000 physician specialists, like the American College of Surgeons and the American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery, said it “must oppose the bill as currently written.”
The group sent a letter this week to the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, taking issue with a variety of provisions in the Senate bill.
They include the establishment of a Medicare advisory board with the authority to set reimbursement policy, increased reporting on physician errors and outcomes, an excise tax on elective cosmetic surgery, and measures that might increase payments to primary-care doctors at the expense of specialists.
Each of those provisions was also among the concerns cited by the A.M.A. But the association, while stopping short of endorsing the bill, expressed support for the legislation’s central elements.
Not so, in the case of the California Medical Association, which represents 35,000 physicians. It declared this week that it opposed the current Senate legislation, joining counterparts in Texas and Florida that took stands in late November.
The California doctors emphasized that the Senate bill did not make adjustments in a Medicare payment formula that would otherwise result in deep cuts in physician payments in coming years. The House passed a measure last month to avoid the cuts.
“There is no way health care reform can work if patients can’t get access to a doctor,” said Dr. Brennan Cassidy, the California group’s president.
KEVIN SACK
Even though the American Medical Association offered qualified support for the Senate health care bill this week, many other medical groups are unqualified in their opposition.
A coalition representing 240,000 physician specialists, like the American College of Surgeons and the American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery, said it “must oppose the bill as currently written.”
The group sent a letter this week to the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, taking issue with a variety of provisions in the Senate bill.
They include the establishment of a Medicare advisory board with the authority to set reimbursement policy, increased reporting on physician errors and outcomes, an excise tax on elective cosmetic surgery, and measures that might increase payments to primary-care doctors at the expense of specialists.
Each of those provisions was also among the concerns cited by the A.M.A. But the association, while stopping short of endorsing the bill, expressed support for the legislation’s central elements.
Not so, in the case of the California Medical Association, which represents 35,000 physicians. It declared this week that it opposed the current Senate legislation, joining counterparts in Texas and Florida that took stands in late November.
The California doctors emphasized that the Senate bill did not make adjustments in a Medicare payment formula that would otherwise result in deep cuts in physician payments in coming years. The House passed a measure last month to avoid the cuts.
“There is no way health care reform can work if patients can’t get access to a doctor,” said Dr. Brennan Cassidy, the California group’s president.
KEVIN SACK
Source: New York Times
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