As the U.S.
House of Representatives voted over the weekend 220-215 to enact President Barack Obama’s $1.2
trillion bill that will in effect revolutionize the American health care
system, many of the nation’s health care providers are awaiting the Senate review with scrutinizing eyes and nervous hearts. Many express grave concern at how a
option will impact their ability to recoup expenditures and also deal with medical malpractice lawsuits.
“I think that health care reform is a good idea, but as a physician what we
worry about is physician reimbursement,” says Dr. Mark A. Grevious, a board certified
plastic surgeon practicing near Chicago. “There’s talk about raising Medicare rates by 20 percent by Jan. 2010. If that
happens, it’s going to affect all of our practices as physicians. And obviously
we’re not going to be very happy, especially if there are no provisions for
tort reform.”
Tort reform refers to changes in the justice system that would reduce
litigation or damages from medical malpractice lawsuits and other lawsuits. Grevious
says physicians are anxious to find out what form of public option going to take. They aren’t
the only ones.
“I think everybody feels the sticking point is going to be the public option. And if it is a public option what kind of option it’s going to be?” says
Tinaz Pavri, a professor of political science in international relations at
Spelman College in Atlanta.
“The public option has lots and lots of complexities that need to be
worked out and it has lots and lots of things for lots and lots of groups, I
guess you could say.”
Pavri pointed out that Independent Senator Joe Lieberman is planning to
filibuster anything that is presented “with a public option, so they might need
to go to a contentious-reconciliation route in the Senate, which eventually I
think they may do because … it’s important for the party and the government to get a bill,” she says. “I think at this point they’re kind of scrambling on a bill and not as
much focused on what exactly is going to be in the bill. It may have a
public option, but it may be so watered down that it [is] possibly not a very robust
one.”
Grevious, contends reform should be more robust and take a different route. “Instead of regulating health care, the insurance companies
should be regulated. We definitely need tort reform. Those things are very
important. If you don’t regulate insurance companies … the CEO of [a company] can
make $50 million. I mean, that’s ridiculous. Do you know how many patients
could have been taken care with that? They can find many doctors to take
care of patients, if [insurance companies] would just pay their physicians.”
Some Republican senators called Obama’s bill “dead on
arrival”, while others say that the public option should be reserved as a last
resort option only. In any case, how Obama’s bill will eventually materialize before the public will soon be revealed. – terry shropshire
