ObamaCare is Off to a Bad Start
The Mayo Clinic, praised by President Barack Obama as a national model for efficient health care, will stop accepting Medicare patients as of tomorrow at one of its primary-care clinics in Arizona, saying the U.S. government pays too little.
This is stunning on so many levels: the President’s continuing push for a public plan, the belief that Medicare can be used to bend the cost curve, the claim that Washington knows best about what is efficient care and why, the notion that the federal government can use its purchasing power to make all providers as efficient as Mayo…etc.
Full report on the Mayo Clinic in Arizona.
I agree with you. It is stunning. And, of course, it is being totally ignored by the mainstream media.
Mayo Scottsdale and Mayo Jacksonville haven’t accepted Medicare assignment for years.
From the Scottsdale web page: “While Mayo Clinic provides medical services to Medicare patients, Mayo has chosen to be nonparticipating and thus does not accept assignment from Medicare for professional and physician services. By not accepting assignment, it means that Mayo does not accept the Medicare approved payment amount as full payment. Mayo follows an established fee schedule based on the federal guidelines for Medicare patients allowing health-care organizations to charge up to 15 percent above the Medicare allowable for which you are financially responsible.”
This is the organization that Obama praised as able to deliver efficient, high-quality care. Now it turns out that the federal government doesn’t pay enough to get Medicare patients in the door. What does that say about the system Obama wants to impose on the whole country?
Let’s see. This is the same Obama Administration that claims that $170 billion of further cuts in Medicare won’t hurt the elderly?
Bruce, you don’t have enough faith. (Only joking.)