Health reform watch

A local retired doctor in Winfield rebuts Congressman Jerry Moran's criticism of Medicare and the idea that Medicare should be offered to all Americans. Not surprising because polls findmost doctors support the creation of a government-run insurance option of some kind. Most Americans do, too.


Here's the letter to editor by Dr. Bruce Wells that ran in Winfield Courier yesterday:

MEDICARE-TYPE PUBLIC OPTION MAKES GOOD SENSE

Dear Congressman Moran:

Having read your opinion article, “A Medicare-type Public Option Makes No Sense,” in the Sept. 21, 2009, Winfield Daily Courier, I want to respond to some of the points you made.
I don’t think Congress will allow Medicare to go bankrupt at any time, and to say so is clearly a scare tactic. The program is well-liked by Seniors, and the fallout from discontinuing the program would be disastrous to Congress. Putting all those in Medicare on private health insurance would severely impact the healthcare quality to all. The cost would be prohibitive and the 20 to 30 percent of overhead costs of those companies is pure wasted money when one considers that the administrative expenses of Medicare are less than 10 percent.
I am not clear where you get the $38 trillion figure, since the amount of Medicare payment in in 2007 was $432 billion (2008 HHS annual Medicare Report). Furthermore, it is my understanding that the projected costs of Medicare will be only $2 trillion in 2019. It seems to me that your figure is yet more hyperbole.
As a primary care physician for 34 years, I can truthfully say that Medicare never grossly underpaid me. Yes, Medicare paid less than most private insurances, but I never felt that I could not afford to take on another senior patient. Private insurers do pay some specialists considerably more than does Medicare, but, then, maybe these private insurers are grossly overpaying the specialists.
Contrary to your statement about Medicare’s regulations being an onus on doctors, I found Medicare to have fewer denials of tests and treatments, have no prior authorization requirements, never restrict my choice of referral physicians and to pay at least as quickly as most private insurances.
Needless to say, I find universal Medicare to be as good a solution to our health care problems as any yet proposed.
In my opinion, to continue our current system without a significant public insurance option is a major disservice to all who have and don’t have health insurance now.
Finally, covering the cost of insuring everyone will definitely require increasing taxes, but eliminating as much waste in Medicare by using currently-available treatment guidelines, having good comparative effectiveness research to validate new treatments and tests, and eliminating the Medicare Advantage Program and its huge overpayments to insurance companies would go a long way to offset the added costs of insurance.

Bruce W. Wells, M.D., ret.
Winfield