Becoming a medical doctor in the U.S. is very hard. It takes years of study. We know this because doctors are great at reminding the rest of us of the costs they incur and sacrifices they make in pursuit of their medical degrees. Also, let’s not forget, because they won’t let us, that doctors help the sick and save lives. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not trying to undervalue the efforts and commitment of doctors. However, I’m also not willing to exclude doctors from criticism for the role they play in our overpriced American health care system.

American doctors have much higher salaries than their equally qualified international peers. At least one justification for the sometimes significant salary differentials is legitimate—medical school and training costs are greater in the U.S. than in other countries. Other justifications such as the U.S. is a wealthy country that can afford to pay its doctor more or that doctors could have chosen even higher paying jobs in other industries are even weaker. No one forces you to become a doctor. And, even if you think medicine is a noble profession, there is no such thing as “nobility pay” in the world of compensation management.

If Medicine Is Noble, Not Every Doctor Is

Medicine and money go hand in hand, and so does greed and self-importance. Some doctors enter the medical profession for noble reasons—they want to alleviate illness and save lives; for others, it is a pathway to wealth and prestige. And no one exemplifies the greedy, egoism of the medical profession like Health & Human Services (HHS) Secretary Tom Price. Now a politician, Price was once an orthopedic surgeon and director of an orthopedic surgery clinic in a wealthy area of Atlanta, GA. Orthopedic surgeons are the highest paid of all medical specialists, with an average salary of nearly half a million dollars a year.

Tom Price was never shy about wanting to become a wealthy doctor. It was his goal. And even after moving into politics as an elected Congressman and now head of HHS, he continues to invest in the health care industry and lies about his corrupt investments in the medical field. Another thing Price never lies he doesn’t lie about is his views that doctors should be left alone to make as much money as they can make. At HHS, Price is looking out for doctors’ pocketbooks. In Price’s world, Medicare payments to doctors rise, quality standards and medical malpractice awards go down, and electronic health records disappear (because who wants to share data with other physicians and invite competition). And that’s not even the worst of Price’s financial activism on behalf of his fellow doctors that don’t want to change but want more money. Price wants to collaborate with doctors in letting them decide how much Medicare (taxpayers) pay for their services.

It Matters Who Becomes A Doctor Continue Reading...

Tags: Tom Price, Medicare, HHS, Doctor's pay

The big health care story last week was Trump threatening, again, to let the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) implode if Democrats did not work with him to pass his health care reform bill. It's a story worth reporting because it clearly shows that Trump just wants to tick health care reform off his to-do list. Something he can brazenly claim is better than Obamacare, even though it won't be, and that he accomplished quickly and through force.

Meanwhile, while Trump was undermining Obamacare with threats, Health & Human Services (HHS) Secretary, the greedy and corrupt, Tom Price, was actively weakening the law. After the Republican health care reform law debacle, Price wasted no time tweaking Obamacare administrative provisions that will most definitely result in fewer people enrolling on the federal exchange. He did this by greatly reducing the annual open enrollment period and placing restrictions on special enrollment periods and requiring documentation for life events such as marriage, birth, and losing workplace health insurance, etc. The new rules also force you to pay the full year's premiums unless you have a life event like new job-based coverage, eligibility for Medicare or Tricare, etc. With this new rule, you cannot stop paying premiums the last few months of the year, as you could under the old Obamacare rules, to save a few bucks. Price and HHS also gave insurers the green light to offer slightly skimpier health plans. Bonus!

But Price's week wasn't done. The former doctor who wants to get rid of Medicare and Medicaid because he believes the reimbursement rates are too low asked doctors for ideas on how they should get paid. Specifically, Price was referring to the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA), which replaced the old system of paying doctors for Medicare services. MACRA is an attempt to move away from paying physicians based on the number of patients they see (fee-for-service model) and towards a system based on value and quality of services. Therefore, MACRA also requires reports on quality and pays physicians extra for meeting quality standards.

Price portrays MACRAs quality standards as so burdensome to doctors that they could lead to burnout and more doctors leaving the profession. He doesn't support bundled payments and likely doesn’t support value-based health care at all. He uses his credentials as a former orthopedic surgeon to claim he knows better than anyone that value is hard to define and therefore, unfair to pay doctors according to value-based standards. Continue Reading...

Tags: obamacare, MACRA, Tom Price

Everyone wants to see the Paul Ryan/Tom Price Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) replacement bill, even most Republican lawmakers. But Ryan and Price would rather look like a putz than reveal who will be the primary losers under their new plan. They are also afraid that their fellow Republicans will join the media in ripping their plan apart. They have no desire to be once again the objects of a mocking press, Democrats and Obamacare supporters for their inability to present a Republican, majority-supported Obamacare alternative plan.

After embarrassing leaks describing their reform paralysis at the Republican retreat in Philadelphia earlier this year, and the leaked draft that revealed a proposal to base tax credits on age instead of income, Ryan and Price literally went underground (House basement) to reveal their latest proposal to a select group of lawmakers. There's plenty to mock about this childish approach to drafting legislation. But like all things related to Republican health care reform efforts, this latest hide and seek stunt is about politics and not providing affordable health care. Ryan can't keep putting out bad proposals that the rest of the GOP won't support. At least not publicly. He failed in his promise from years ago to lead the effort to draft an Obamacare replacement bill and is now just a mere figurehead of the process. Health care reform is now a Senate and White House effort with Ryan serving as secretary and spokesperson.

And with Senator Mitch McConnell and Secretary Tom Price leading the effort, we can expect more drastic cuts to federal subsidies and fewer people with insurance coverage than if Ryan had pushed through all of his lackluster reform ideas. McConnell has always wanted to push health care reform back to the states via high-risk pools and other disproved policies. But states have made it clear that they need federal government funds and they like the money Obamacare provided. Therefore, I expect the new Republican health care reform bill to grandfather Medicaid expansion for the states that adopted it. And based on past Ryan/Price proposals and the Trump Joint Congressional speech this week, we can easily assume that the crux of the law includes health savings accounts and tax credits that will mostly benefit the well-off, healthy and young Continue Reading...

Tags: obamacare, obamacare alternative, obamacare subsidies, Tom Price, Paul Ryan

It is official, the corrupt and greedy former orthopedic surgeon, Tom Price is the new head of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). What changes he will make to the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) weighs heavily on a lot of minds. Will it be a slow dismantling of the law or full replacement? Will he work with House Speaker, Paul Ryan who promises to have a House plan ready in 2017, possibly by the end of the first quarter of the year? At the moment, who knows what he'll do, but expect a lot of noise over the next month from the GOP about their Obamacare replacement plan.

In fact, the show of the Republican's impending replacement plan has already started, with Paul Ryan as its star. First, he hosted a televised town hall in January, trying to convince America that Obamacare was in a death spiral. His criticism of Obamacare continued on the Charlie Rose show, and every other time he is in front of a television camera or reporters microphone. And just this week the American Action Network (AAN), using footage of Paul Ryan and hinting at his BetterWay plan, ran a television ad claiming Republicans have a plan.

After leaks of a clueless GOP grappling with health care reform at the Republican retreat in Philadelphia last month, Paul Ryan is eager to change the narrative. He is building up his party's Obamacare replacement reveal the only way he knows how, by using his star power and telling a bucket full of lies.

Ryan is not as smart as he wants people to think but unfortunately, he has a reputation for being the smart guy that's not afraid of getting into the weeds of policy. He's hoping that his undeserved reputation as technical but empathetic, will allow Republicans to replace Obamacare with less health care coverage. He doesn't frame his proposal as less than Obamacare. Instead, it is referred to as patient-centered and freedom (from costly mandates for coverage you don't need). Continue Reading...

Tags: obamacare, obamacare alternative, Tom Price, Paul Ryan

To borrow a line from Hamilton, the musical, [Republicans are having their] "governing is harder moment" with health care reform. Just this week they added two more health care reform proposals (outlines) to the seven they conjured up since 2009. The latest health care proposals are near opposites of each other and include an Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) light plan and a worse than before Obamacare plan with no subsidies, or possibly, insurance for the sick and poor.

The Road To Still No Health Care Reform Bill

Whenever Obamacare opponents provide an Obamacare alternative plan, its contents are 90% Obamacare is an abject failure, and 10% (usually a bulleted list), here's my plan. Because the focus is not on reforming America's complex and pricey health care and health insurance sectors, their plans come up short in money, benefits covered and access, when compared to Obamacare. This opposition-focused exercise that Republicans are engaged in has produced nine proposals so far.

• The Obamacare Replacement Act
• Patient Freedom Act
• The American Health Care Reform Act
• The Patient Choice, Affordability, Responsibility, and Empowerment (CARE) Act
• Health Care Choices Act
• A Better Way, To Fix Health Care (Reform Plan)
• The Patients' Choice Act
• Health Care Freedom Act
• Empowering Patients First Act

Tags: obamacare, obamacare alternative, Tom Price

Two days before the U.S. presidential inauguration, Senator Bernie Sanders asked Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) nominee, Tom Price, "do you believe that health care is a right of all Americans, whether they are rich or they're poor." Like any worthy opponent, Price would not give a "yes" or "no" answer. Instead, he said, "I look forward to working with you to make certain that every single American has access to the highest quality care that is possible.” Here's how I interpret Price's cold reply:

Americans that can afford to pay for the highest quality health care shall have access to it. Americans that cannot afford the highest quality care shall have access to the level of care what little money they have can provide. A doctor is advocating for levels of care based on ability to pay. Shocker. But not all doctors are like Tom.

The Greedy Dr. Price

Tom Price has an estimated net worth of over $13 million. His HHS nomination hearing is as much about corruption as it is about policy. There are allegations that he purchased health care stocks based on insider information and introduced legislation favorable to a company whose stock he owned. Price claims his stock purchases were legal, and that may be true, but his lack of propriety in making these purchases and their timing, is unsettling but not surprising.

Price's careers as a doctor, State Senator and U.S. Congressman have a common theme—oppose any and all legislation that threatens the paychecks of doctors. He opposed single payer health insurance long before Obamacare when he mobilized other doctors to lobby against Hillarycare. And he has a history of trying to limit, sometimes drastically, the amount patients can receive in malpractice lawsuits. With so much time and effort devoted to pursuing and sustaining wealth for doctors, the confirmation hearing may be uncomfortable, but Tom's been doing this for a long time, and he has an answer for everything.

Tom Wants A Health Care System Made Up Of Individuals

As an entrepreneur with a medical degree whose main purpose in life is to stay rich, we can expect Tom Price to oppose legislation to limit what doctors, hospitals and pharmaceutical and medical device companies can charge for their services and products. For Tom, health care is a commodity, not a right of all Americans. Other things not to get your hopes up about with a Price-led HHS department:

• meaningful health care price transparency
• limits on out-of-pocket health care cost for patients
• the prohibition against balance billing

Tags: Tom Price, universal health care