How doctors are fighting Medicare cuts

This is so true. I have a friend who is an ophthalmologist. He is older and does not do surgery, but his sole source of income is from glasses sales. The optical shop does not accept medicare or medicaid. His revenue from office visits only pays his overhead; there is no profit, and he would be forced to retire if he did not have an optical shop. I think it is so ironic that optometrists want to expand their scope of practice when the money is all in glasses sales!

Physician reimbusement and health care expenditures are two different things. Federal health care dollars go to pay hospitals, home health, drug costs, wheelchair manufactureres,HMO’s, and providers amongst others. It is a zero-sum game with an increasing pool of benficiaries. Therefore, when drug costs rise, or there are more patients needing care, physician reimbursements must fall. Do you know that from September 22-30 the federal government will not be paying doctors? I think it is time to take a weeklong vacation, but that is exactly what the government and insurers would like us to do. Meanwhile rents, staff salaries, insurance costs, etc. continue to rise for the health care provider. Because you cannot balance bill, you cannot pass on the increasing costs nor compensate for decreasing reimbusement. Because of the structural rigidity inherent in a medical career, you are essentially stuck. It will take a crisis, which is where we are heading, before this will be worked out.

One might notice how the sob story article failed to mention how much each provider was actually making after expenses. But, then again, it would be a bit difficult to engender much sympathy knowing that each provider was still making hundreds of thousands of dollars when the average reader is making 30-40K.

And the ignorant don’t focus on expenses, because these must be paid before you can have an income. Could you potentially have a zero income despite working full time? A physician or any other self-employed person theoretically could. At least if you were fired from your job you would not be working for no pay!