A Christian medical group says Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is trying to buy off physicians with Medicare payments.
In an attempt to garner more physician support for healthcare reform, Senator Harry Reid (D-Nevada) is promising legislation that would halt cuts in Medicare reimbursements. The Christian Medical & Dental Associations (CMDA) says the move highlights how "morally bankrupt this politicization of medicine is becoming." Dr. Donald Thompson with the CMDA considers Reid's ploy nothing but a façade. "Senator Reid's effort to buy off doctors by saying that he's going to freeze [the decline of] those payments will not work," says Thompson. "I don't have confidence that Congress can create a sustainable Medicare system the way it's currently organized." Thompson's recommendation for Medicare? "It needs to be dismantled and rebuilt so that doctors are reimbursed for keeping people healthy rather than seeing a lot of people," he suggests. Thompson explains that currently he is only receiving 65-70 percent reimbursement from Medicare, and that a cost-saving "gimmick" that is being considered in the Senate would lower those payments further. He contends that under those proposed cost-saving measures, he would only be reimbursed 40-50 percent -- which would not cover his overhead or the salaries for his employees. Dr. David Stevens, CEO of the CMDA, says if physicians take Senator Reid's offer, "such a sellout would be the watershed event that historians would point to as marking the de-professionalization of medicine, when physicians traded convictions for cash."
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