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View Full Version : Congress got rid of one of their dumbest-ever rituals - the "doc fix"



Bo-4
04-15-2015, 09:49 AM
Nice to see them get something done ... ANYTHING!

Over the past decade and change, the term “doc fix” became shorthand for a nearly annual process by which Congress, facing a big, unintended cut to how much Medicare pays physicians, would scramble to find some way to stop it, as doctors issued loud, mostly empty (http://kff.org/medicare/issue-brief/medicare-patients-access-to-physicians-a-synthesis-of-the-evidence/) threats to stop treating Medicare patients. This happened 17 times between 2003 and 2014. Seventeen times.

Rather than actually addressing the policy requiring these cuts and coming up with a new way to pay doctors that actually worked as intended, Congress continually dug itself into a deeper hole, making a permanent doc fix costlier. It’s like putting off repairing that leaky faucet in the bathroom and instead putting a sponge under the drip so they don’t have to hear the splashing sound.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/14/doc-fix-bill_n_7036704.html

http://persephonemagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/clapping-crowd.gif

PattyHill
04-15-2015, 09:58 AM
It was great to see this pass, with people from both parties working together.

Of course my rep, Tom McClintock, voted against it in the house (sigh)

The fact that it fixes the payments is great. Even better is that it shows them working together!

The compromise on the Iran agreement and how the Senate should review is was also good to see.

Bo-4
04-15-2015, 10:06 AM
It was great to see this pass, with people from both parties working together.

Of course my rep, Tom McClintock, voted against it in the house (sigh)

The fact that it fixes the payments is great. Even better is that it shows them working together!

The compromise on the Iran agreement and how the Senate should review is was also good to see.

Where you at in Callie Patty? I grew up in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties.

PattyHill
04-15-2015, 10:30 AM
Where you at in Callie Patty? I grew up in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties.

I'm 40 miles from Yosemite, so north and east of where you were!

Bo-4
04-15-2015, 10:44 AM
I'm 40 miles from Yosemite, so north and east of where you were!

Nice! My fam used to get a cabin there in the summer.. that and Lassen. Lassen was where i first noticed the awesomeness of nature. When i was 8 or 9, remember going for a long hike with my Dad and we finally came to this lookout point with lake and mountain spectacularly laid out in front of us. The view hit me like a ton of bricks.

http://cdn2-b.examiner.com/sites/default/files/styles/image_content_width/hash/1c/9f/155.JPG?itok=z59jTvnI

PattyHill
04-15-2015, 11:24 AM
Nice! My fam used to get a cabin there in the summer.. that and Lassen. Lassen was where i first noticed the awesomeness of nature. When i was 8 or 9, remember going for a long hike with my Dad and we finally came to this lookout point with lake and mountain spectacularly laid out in front of us. The view hit me like a ton of bricks.

http://cdn2-b.examiner.com/sites/default/files/styles/image_content_width/hash/1c/9f/155.JPG?itok=z59jTvnI

Lassen is gorgeous! You came from a good family!

Bo-4
04-15-2015, 11:39 AM
Lassen is gorgeous! You came from a good family!

Yeah, way too good for the likes of me. ;-)

Never forget this little soda fountain/ ice cream joint they had at Lassen.

Hot day meant a root beer float. And their Cokes were made from the original syrup they still had back in the 60's. HEAVEN!!

Bob
04-15-2015, 11:46 AM
It was great to see this pass, with people from both parties working together.

Of course my rep, Tom McClintock, voted against it in the house (sigh)

The fact that it fixes the payments is great. Even better is that it shows them working together!

The compromise on the Iran agreement and how the Senate should review is was also good to see.

Let's tell the whole story Patty.


HR 2 – Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act: NO

March 26, 2015

Vote Notes on Legislation
3/26/2015 - HR 2 – Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act: NO. In 1997, Congress passed legislation to control Medicare spending by establishing a “Sustainable Growth Rate” (SGR) that limits the annual increase for physician reimbursements, but Congress never had the stomach to actually implement it. The result: every year Congress passes a “doc fix” to avoid the accumulated SGR cuts, often by cutting spending in other areas. This bill does away with the SGR altogether, which would be a good thing if it were actually offset by equal spending reforms. Regrettably, it isn’t. Instead, it adopts some minor “means testing” for Medicare recipients (essentially a tax increase for wealthy seniors), but still manages to run up another $141 billion of debt over the next ten years, at a time our country is reaching catastrophic debt levels. Nor is it likely that Congress will actually implement these “reforms,” since they don’t take effect until 2018 and 2020, and the Rules Committee voted down my amendment to have them take effect immediately. Finally, I resent that House leaders attached unrelated measures to this bill, including vital Secure Rural Schools funding, which should be supported on its own merits.

Bob
04-15-2015, 11:58 AM
I'm 40 miles from Yosemite, so north and east of where you were!

I looked up District 4 and he has a huge area, low population though. I mean per sq mile.

Maybe she lives in the Angels Camp area or Sonora area.

Bob
04-15-2015, 12:02 PM
I'm 40 miles from Yosemite, so north and east of where you were!

Are you close to Jamestown? PattyHil

Captain Obvious
04-15-2015, 12:05 PM
I was flirting with a hospital in Idaho a few weeks ago. That's an area I really don't want to move to, too many loons there and this place was no exception.

I apply online and get an automatic response that says "we don't hire tobacco users". Great, should have put that in the want ad, douchebags. I won't work at a place that feels the need to impose their bullshit "values" onto what I decide to do, legally, on my private time, fuck off and die. So just to be sure I call them, ask for the HR person who I talk to, who refuses to give me her name for some bizarre reason. I wasn't combative at all, I just asked what their tobacco policy was in regard to job applicants. She wouldn't give me her name.

See ya.

So I keep getting these canned emails. "You applied, contact us, we want to talk to you". I just ignore them. A month later I get an email from HR person saying "thanks, but we hired someone". Here's the great part, she doesn't identify herself in the email but email header has her full name in it.

Idiots, that's why I didn't pursue them, I know the culture. Idiocy.

Bo-4
04-15-2015, 12:12 PM
I was flirting with a hospital in Idaho a few weeks ago. That's an area I really don't want to move to, too many loons there and this place was no exception.

I apply online and get an automatic response that says "we don't hire tobacco users". Great, should have put that in the want ad, douchebags. I won't work at a place that feels the need to impose their bullshit "values" onto what I decide to do, legally, on my private time, fuck off and die. So just to be sure I call them, ask for the HR person who I talk to, who refuses to give me her name for some bizarre reason. I wasn't combative at all, I just asked what their tobacco policy was in regard to job applicants. She wouldn't give me her name.

See ya.

So I keep getting these canned emails. "You applied, contact us, we want to talk to you". I just ignore them. A month later I get an email from HR person saying "thanks, but we hired someone". Here's the great part, she doesn't identify herself in the email but email header has her full name in it.

Idiots, that's why I didn't pursue them, I know the culture. Idiocy.

I remember you said something about a hospital in Idaho several months ago but was thinking it was rural Idaho. Was it St Luke's or St Al's? They're about the only game in the state.

Boise is pretty sane, level-headed and centrist with a libertarian edge. Once you get out in the sticks, the loons rule.

Captain Obvious
04-15-2015, 12:18 PM
I remember you said something about a hospital in Idaho several months ago but was thinking it was rural Idaho. Was it St Luke's or St Al's? They're about the only game in the state.

Boise is pretty sane, level-headed and centrist with a libertarian edge. Once you get out in the sticks, the loons rule.

One of the rural, small hospitals. That's my background, I won't work at the 800lb gorilla systems. They're Satan's angels, so yeah - it would be out in the sticks.

PattyHill
04-15-2015, 01:50 PM
Are you close to Jamestown? @Pat (http://thepoliticalforums.com/member.php?u=150)tyHil

I've already said more than I prefer to say on a public forum in terms of where I"m located.

PattyHill
04-15-2015, 01:51 PM
Let's tell the whole story Patty.


Quoting from a McClintock press release. That's not the whole story. He always comes up with some odd reason for his vote.

I read that press release as well. Didn't convince me he should vote against it.

nic34
04-15-2015, 01:53 PM
I've already said more than I prefer to say on a public forum in terms of where I"m located.

Especially to bob.... :shocked:

Captain Obvious
04-15-2015, 01:53 PM
I've already said more than I prefer to say on a public forum in terms of where I"m located.

Wait until he starts PMing you asking you for your social security number, your waist size and what kind of olive oil you prefer.

nic34
04-15-2015, 01:55 PM
Quoting from a McClintock press release. That's not the whole story. He always comes up with some odd reason for his vote.

I read that press release as well. Didn't convince me he should vote against it.

He was saying one of the reasons was the "pork" in the bill. Yeah right, like he hasn't voted for pork before....GOPers are all about pork.

Bob
04-15-2015, 02:07 PM
I've already said more than I prefer to say on a public forum in terms of where I"m located.

Wow, if you said yes, we would have your actual address. LMAO

I say in my profile I am from Fremont, CA

So far, no threats PattyHill

Bob
04-15-2015, 02:08 PM
Wait until he starts PMing you asking you for your social security number, your waist size and what kind of olive oil you prefer.

Nope, that is your gig.

Bob
04-15-2015, 02:09 PM
Quoting from a McClintock press release. That's not the whole story. He always comes up with some odd reason for his vote.

I read that press release as well. Didn't convince me he should vote against it.

He wanted it to take place now.

It won't take place for several years.

Bob
04-15-2015, 02:10 PM
Quoting from a McClintock press release. That's not the whole story. He always comes up with some odd reason for his vote.

I read that press release as well. Didn't convince me he should vote against it.

It passed. It won't happen for a few years. You got your wishes.

PattyHill
04-15-2015, 03:17 PM
It passed. It won't happen for a few years. You got your wishes.

It's a good bill. Nothing is perfect. But I think we're all happy that SOMETHING decent got done with agreement from both sides!

PattyHill
04-15-2015, 03:18 PM
Wow, if you said yes, we would have your actual address. LMAO

I say in my profile I am from Fremont, CA

So far, no threats @PattyHill (http://thepoliticalforums.com/member.php?u=1335)

Glad to hear it.

Bob
04-15-2015, 03:46 PM
It's a good bill. Nothing is perfect. But I think we're all happy that SOMETHING decent got done with agreement from both sides!

The Feds have ripped off both my doctor and the hospital so I know their problem.

Captain Obvious
04-15-2015, 03:47 PM
The Feds have ripped off both my doctor and the hospital so I know their problem.

They fucked your nurse too.

...wait

Ransom
04-15-2015, 06:03 PM
Nice to see them get something done ... ANYTHING!

Over the past decade and change, the term “doc fix” became shorthand for a nearly annual process by which Congress, facing a big, unintended cut to how much Medicare pays physicians, would scramble to find some way to stop it, as doctors issued loud, mostly empty (http://kff.org/medicare/issue-brief/medicare-patients-access-to-physicians-a-synthesis-of-the-evidence/) threats to stop treating Medicare patients. This happened 17 times between 2003 and 2014. Seventeen times.

Rather than actually addressing the policy requiring these cuts and coming up with a new way to pay doctors that actually worked as intended, Congress continually dug itself into a deeper hole, making a permanent doc fix costlier. It’s like putting off repairing that leaky faucet in the bathroom and instead putting a sponge under the drip so they don’t have to hear the splashing sound.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/14/doc-fix-bill_n_7036704.html



First things first. These doc fixes were taken out of the obamacare scoring so that the CBO's cost estimate would come in at less than 1 trillion over some 6 years of benefits. And added to our national debt and deficit that Obama is still claiming he's decreased. Secondly, there are better ways to pay doctors...but the soaring costs of health care, medicine, and the expansion of medicare itself is what is driving the increase in doc fixes......oh American Left. It's an entitlement that many even on these pages have been quite outspoken about. Age of eligibility, medical savings accounts, increased co-pays for certain types of care, allowing insurance companies to go after these customers, cross state boundries, open the market......all of these suggestions the Democrat Party immediately rejects. Their version of health care what you're seeing now at the VA.

Johnny come lately to this party, Bo, you're sailing in wake.

Ransom
04-15-2015, 06:08 PM
It's a good bill. Nothing is perfect. But I think we're all happy that SOMETHING decent got done with agreement from both sides!

It is a good bill. So...can we now stop ignoring the 800lbs pink gorilla in the room? What are we sending a hundreds of billions bill to the President for signature? Why all this money? Oh that's right......the cost of health care.......medicare itself.......that entitlement no one on the Left wants to do anything about..

Ignore it........it'll just leave if you ignore it.

Bo-4
04-15-2015, 06:19 PM
Nice spin of actual FACT (ya, we know you hate that crap) .. no dancing banana.

http://www.sherv.net/cm/emo/funny/2/big-dancing-banana-smiley-emoticon.gif

Ransom
04-15-2015, 06:43 PM
https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcS34iiTQE1pKoXBnK0szuBWuaDLAAQ7b VVHErTKbXgLjmONKw1FRw (http://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CAcQjRw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fcontinuummm.com%2Fthe-800-pound-gorilla-in-the-room%2F&ei=QfcuVaXoG8aKsQSwgoCQAQ&bvm=bv.91071109,d.cWc&psig=AFQjCNGJdGeeF0Ik8er230SUD0WqqInTZA&ust=1429227726444502)

It's a fact the woman on the man's left is reading a f'n book too Bo!

Ransom
04-15-2015, 07:00 PM
https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRqQWDVqQBv_fzcvNymqUWIdwrgvOhjt 5ib0TgcTrJH9VSZgOBe (http://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CAcQjRw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fnewvaluestreams.com%2Fwordpress%2 F%3Fp%3D1675&ei=gvkuVYqrK6vjsATb0oLgCA&bvm=bv.91071109,d.cWc&psig=AFQjCNGJdGeeF0Ik8er230SUD0WqqInTZA&ust=1429227726444502)

PattyHill
04-15-2015, 09:39 PM
It is a good bill. So...can we now stop ignoring the 800lbs pink gorilla in the room? What are we sending a hundreds of billions bill to the President for signature? Why all this money? Oh that's right......the cost of health care.......medicare itself.......that entitlement no one on the Left wants to do anything about..

Ignore it........it'll just leave if you ignore it.

Medical costs have been going down. Did you want to ignore that?

I'm all for single payer, myself. But that was a no-go.

Ransom
04-16-2015, 03:40 AM
Medical costs have been going down. Did you want to ignore that?

Pretend I'm from Missouri


I'm all for single payer, myself. But that was a no-go.

Wrong. It's a go-go and called the VA