Greetings…Medicare and Tricare patients – we may soon be up that creek without a paddle if we don’t take action now. I sent the following letter this morning to my legislators through the American Medical Association’s website to protest against further cuts to our physicians. They are already penalized by taking Medicare and Medicaid patients now. If this new cut goes through, patients like us won’t even have a canoe up that creek, much less the paddle.
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“Dear Legislator’s… Don’t force physicians to make the choice to of not treating Medicare or Tricare patients or go out of business for lack of income and not be able to treat anyone.
The medical profession is the only profession in this nation to
be penalized by the work they do – working in health care.
accepting Medicare or
Medicaid patients penalize the very people working
to provide health care to our citizens – our
physicians.
Forcing additional physician related medical cuts will effectively take care of too much government care costs by getting rid of seniors and our retired military to make room for the baby boomers beginning to enter the system. Is that what you want?
I fit into both categories, a senior on Medicare and Tricare. My medical team already loses money every time they see me.
How dare the government control what should be private industry KNOWING these additional cuts will drive doctors out of business and/or be a death warrant for patients like me left stranded without medical assistance.
My husband is retired military, we’re both seniors – he is my ‘caregiver.’ I have COPD, Sarcoidosis, Bone on Bone left hip Arthritis, RLS, Lymph-edema, Psoriasis and Other Stuff.
My parents legally immigrated to this country, the land of their dreams, knowing they were only limited by their own imagination and willingness to work. For shame that America could be reduced to a government willing to harm their retired military and seniors by reducing the medical care needed for their survival.
The Medicare patch Congress passed last June is only a temporary reprieve for the seniors and baby boomers who rely on the promise of Medicare. In December, the Medicare cut to doctor services will be a whopping 23 percent, increasing to nearly 25 percent in January.
It’s a tragedy that Congress has let Medicare erode into an unreliable, unstable system for both patients and their doctors.
We need a long-term solution to this annual problem, so you will no longer need to apply short-term Band-Aid fixes to stop impending cuts that get worse year after year. And don’t forget – baby boomers begin entering Medicare soon, and if this problem isn’t fixed, these new Medicare patients may not be able to find a doctor to treat them!
The vicious cycle of short-term delays that make the cuts worse and raise the cost of real reform for American taxpayers must come to an end.
This is a dangerous game of Russian roulette with seniors’ health care. Sick patients can’t wait any longer for you to do the right thing. Please stabilize this broken payment system before the damage is done and cannot be reversed.
Don’t allow a bad system to get worse.”
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Please let your voice be heard.
http://www.ama-assn.org/
Sincerely,
Sharon O’Hara
