Surgery Center of Oklahoma Blog

Lori Montgomery’s Washington Post article was dealt with in a recent blog.  This was a long article by her crediting the new health care law with decreasing the rate of growth of Medicare spending.  I visited with two surgeons this week who had additional insights in to why Medicare’s growth is slowing.  First, remember that one of the possible causes of Medicare’s slower growth I mentioned (not mentioned in her brown-nosing article) was that fewer and fewer physicians are willing to see Medicare patients and that this has resulted in a de facto rationing.  There’s much more to this than I originally thought.  One surgeon told me this week that more and more patients aged 64 are having surgeries (like total joint replacements) prior to reaching Medicare age in spite of the increased out of pocket expense compared to waiting just one year for Medicare to kick in.  He said in each and every case the patients are telling him that they are scared that the surgery they are having will not be paid for by Medicare or that no one will see them as Medicare beneficiaries for their condition.

Additionally, Medicare cuts totalling 27% take place January 10th.  What is more interesting is what another surgeon told me Medicare plans to do between the 1st and the 10th of January.  They aren’t going to pay any claims at all.  If you think this will affect the Medicare patients’ access to the physicians’ offices, go to the head of the class.  This will not only affect their access during the month of January.  The credibility of the entire Ponzi scheme will take a black eye and I predict that more and more physicians are going to abandon Medicare altogether.

Given these additional considerations (neither one of which was part of Ms. Montgomery’s article) and her baseless praising of Osamacare makes here a true, agenda-toting sycophant, I’m afraid.  Seriously, how could a Washington Post reporter write an article like hers and not consider less access to care (or at least fear of less access) as a possibility?  And then praise the new health care law as a success in connection with this phenomenon?  The blatant lies and propaganda, like her article,  surrounding this horrendous legislation continue to amaze me.

My advice to any patients “insured” by Medicare is to find a doctor that has already opted out of this scheme and pay them out of your pocket.  Do this now, for the line that will soon form in those physicians’ offices will be longer than anything the TSA has ever created.

G. Keith Smith, M.D.