REPORT: 60 Hospitals Cancelled Due to New Health Law

reply to post by haterproof


Nice. I present you with language directly from the bill in question and the best you can do is simply deny it? This form of argument may have worked in kindergarten but has no place among educated adults. Back up your claims. Show us where the amendments have been ratified to not include this language, or at least explain your argument. Otherwise, go play with the kiddies.

Originally posted by haterproof
It would be nice if ATS wasn't a dumping place for either left wing or right wing politicians' ideological cronies. But taking disinfo directly from the horse's mouth itself and Cybercast News Service of "the right news right now" really scrapes the barrel. A two minute google search reveals the lies. The instant multiple flagging of this thread without taking the time to research its content is rather indicative of people working together to push agendas. Either that or flat out idiocy! www.abovetopsecret.com...

[edit on 12-4-2010 by haterproof]

I will have to check this out, but in my opinion, the liberals are simply spitting sound bites they hear on TV when they say things like "the republicans are making this or that up" and "it's not in the health care bill" or "it's disinformation" or "it's a false movement"

I have this sneaking suspician that the said liberals haven't even checked themselves, or bothered thinking for themselves, either. And I am also almost certain that one day, they will find that the republicans were right (because the things actually happen) and be either widely regarded as idiots or not even remember what they said in the past, instead quoting new sound bites. I am a moderate.

I also am of the opinion that both the democrats and republicans are so wet over their own political philosophies that they aren't even able to question when their own political leader does things that are completely screwed up, and not in line with what they want. Instead they stick their head in the sand. Neither side realizes that they are being played, but point fingers at the other side in just the right rythm to screw the country over.

In order to do something about the mess this country is becoming, we need to transcend political idealogies and start thinking for ourselves and working together as people.

[edit on 13-4-2010 by darkbake]

If this is false information, then please, Mods close the thread.

We don't need this kind of crap on the front page of our beloved ATS. It just discredits everything we say in the eyes of an outsider.

Edit: I am confused as to if the information is accurate. I read just BlackJackal's post and I must say the language used is typical lawyer speak. BlackJackal, please elaborate on the text you provided.

[edit on 13-4-2010 by OrphenFire]

reply to post by OrphenFire


With the current language of the bill, physician owned hospitals are prohibited from expanding period. There is however, a provision for the Secretary to create a process by which a physician owned hospital can apply for an exception but that has not yet been defined.

In addition the bill limits the percentage of any physician ownership and investment interests in hospitals to current levels. With the way the bill is currently written this means that Doctors cannot increase their current ownership or investment in hospitals or acquire new ownership or investment.

While the OP's article is definitely biased, using the executive director of Physician Hospitals of America as the principal source for the article. The issue addressed is still very real. I don't know if 60 hospitals that were in the planning phase were cancelled, but I can see how they would have been given the language of the bill.

Originally posted by Snarf
reply to post by bluemooone2

 

more lies about the health care bill.

Arent things bad enough to the point you DONT have to make crap up to spread to people in order get your point across?

What lies?

Looks like the actual bill is being quoted ...

reply to post by BlackJackal


In my state, it seems that drs. are all in charge of "Hospital Administration". Clinics even.

If they also hold ownership of their enterprise, they are precluded by virtue of having a medical license? To PRACTICE medicine?

Does this mean that a sole propietor of a General Practitioner cannot operate? Like your family doctor, unless he is owned by a major healthcare LLC? A for profit corporation?

Is this the middle ground? The middle ground between VA care and Private insurance care, where you're actually told what is wrong and get fast treatment, or is it more of a delay as we go 'treatment procedure' type plan?

Does this mean GPs can't treat like an emergency room? Can Dentists do emergency work?

Just thinking that this could be interpreted in so many different angles, its hard to say. This is way too vague. Even though its written in blacks law language, the beauty of it is that it can form every opinion in the world...

Supreme Courts make opinions.

My point is that a 2300+ page bill is tantamount to mass ignorance.

We elect people who only work on campaigns to stay in the game. To read a bill is foreign to these people. They only accept their advisors input. Lobbyists, likely. Nobody really knows what it is, IMO.

The whole concept of doctor owned hospitals which aim to cut the bureaucracy of large health insurance controlled hospitals sounds like a nice idea, but in practice apparently it isn't such a good thing for sick people.

www.businessweek.com...

One concern about specialty hospitals is that they selectively treat the most lucrative patients. A study of heart hospitals in Arizona found that about 21% of patients admitted to physician-owned hospitals undergo routine surgeries such as a heart bypass but are otherwise relatively healthy. Only 10% of patients fit that profile at facilities that aren't doctor-owned; the vast majority are more complicated and expensive to treat because they have serious problems, such as diabetes and other chronic conditions.

"THIS ISN'T FAIR COMPETITION"
When physician-owners focus on less complex cases, they still earn returns on ancillary services, such as X-rays. But they dodge having to dole out care that isn't adequately reimbursed, such as nursing costs for patients who linger for days after their surgeries, too sick to go home. "When you're an owner, you have an incentive to make sure every case is profitable," says Jean M. Mitchell, professor of public policy at Georgetown University and author of the Arizona study. "It's scary."

Some critics charge that specialty hospitals also slough off uninsured patients, who invariably end up in the emergency rooms of nonprofit hospitals. Those hospitals, facing an exodus of insured patients to specialized rivals, may find it hard to stay afloat since they can't balance the cost of treating the uninsured with profits from performing pricey procedures on the insured. A study by the Texas Hospital Assn. (THA) found that the year after a heart-imaging facility opened in one town, the cardiac care center at the nearby community hospital slid from a $524,646 net profit to a $20,786 net loss. "We're all for competition," says THA spokesman Gregg Knaupe. "Problem is, this isn't fair competition."

Personally, I think all health care should be non-profit. It seems that the only efficiency that profit creates is the efficiency of creating profit, and all too often that comes at the cost of quality and innovation.

Haterproof had commented on another thread about this. He is right.

I once saw Nuerologist after a month long headache.

He refered me to recieve an MRI from a facility conveniently located next door to his doctors office...he owned the MRI center.

The scan was expensive and when I went for a second opinion, the other doc explained that the MRI was done on a machine so old that the images were near useless. I get a second MRI done on a machine that was made in the last 10 years and the insurance company refused to cover it because I already had one done...follow me?

It is BAD NEWS for a doctor to have a financial interest in recommending you to a given facility or hospital.

What if a Doc. knows that the hospital across town has the best cardiac ward in the state and the best cardiac specialists, but the hospital he owns nearby is really, really trying hard to expand thier cardiac ward so they can bill the big bucks...and he refers you and his other patients with ticker problems to the lesser qualified hospital...that he owns...because he will make alot of money doing it. Not hypothetical. It happens every day.

It's not rocket science...it's good old fashioned greed.

Physician self-referral is the practice of a physician referring a patient to a medical facility in which he/she has a financial interest, be it ownership, investment, or a structured compensation arrangement. Critics of the practice allege an inherent conflict of interest, given the physician's position to benefit from the referral. They suggest that such arrangements may encourage over-utilization of services, in turn driving up health care costs. In addition, they believe that it would create a captive referral system, which limits competition by other providers. en.wikipedia.org...

What makes me scratch my head most often...is that this culture war/war of ideologies that polticians seem to be encouraging requires it's soldiers at times to attack themselves.

They find themselves vehemently arguing in favor of bad healthcare policies and a doctors right to prioritize income over a patients own welfare.

It just seems so bizzare sometimes.

Thank you all for your replies. Now on top of this we have `Medical Schools Can't Keep Up` from the wall street journal .online.wsj.com...
And people are now thinking twice about attending medical school.

reply to post by bluemooone2


You might consider a new thread for that...unless you are looking to derail your own thread?

Originally posted by maybereal11
reply to post by bluemooone2

 

You might consider a new thread for that...unless you are looking to derail your own thread?

Good call I thinks. Thanks . done and done) www.abovetopsecret.com...

Originally posted by bluemooone2
Whatever your political stand is , you have to agree that less doctors and hospitals and many more patients equals one hell of a mess. Were going to need massive reform to fix the reform .

[edit on 12-4-2010 by bluemooone2]

Yes, less doctors and more patients means a mess.

But that doesn't mean this is going to be the case.

You can't take one extreme that IS true, and artificially apply it to another extreme that IS NOT true and then wrap it up and say "see? i told you"

This thread is a lie.

Its making things up to trick you.

It worked.

reply to post by Snarf


So where is YOUR proof that the thread is a lie? The OP presented pretty darned good proof to the contrary. All you have is "because I say so".

reply to post by sos37


the OP presented nothing.

The burden of proof is on the OP. Not up to me to prove it otherwise.

I refuse to do the footwork for someone too lazy to do it for themselves.

Im telling you - this is a lie. The healthcare bill, in its design, does not call for the cancellation of any new hospitals. If any hospitals get canceled, its because the man or woman in charge of building them said "you know what? Screw this"

Don't believe me? I'm not surprised.

[edit on 14-4-2010 by Snarf]

Originally posted by Snarf
reply to post by sos37

 

the OP presented nothing.

The burden of proof is on the OP. Not up to me to prove it otherwise.

I refuse to do the footwork for someone too lazy to do it for themselves.

Im telling you - this is a lie. The healthcare bill, in its design, does not call for the cancellation of any new hospitals. If any hospitals get canceled, its because the man or woman in charge of building them said "you know what? Screw this"

Don't believe me? I'm not surprised.

[edit on 14-4-2010 by Snarf]

It is all about Medicare certification. If these facilities under development don't get certified by the end of December, Poof! no certification. Gotta have the certs to accept medicare patients and we all know about the massive Boomer retirement that is beginning to occur. Without the cert they are dead in the water because they won't be able to treat these patients. Red tape will indirectly choke these hospitals out. Right now there are about 13 hospitals under construction that may make this cut if construction goes perfectly. The rest are SOL.

I go into greater detail here.
www.abovetopsecret.com...

[edit on 14-4-2010 by jibeho]

reply to post by jibeho


So these hospitals can't survive on privately funded healthcare alone?

That should tell you the whole private healthcare claim is a joke.

The repubs went all out for their corporate masters to stop any decent healthcare reform, but it is quite clear that the system is one huge mess.

Originally posted by poet1b
reply to post by jibeho

 

So these hospitals can't survive on privately funded healthcare alone?

That should tell you the whole private healthcare claim is a joke.

The repubs went all out for their corporate masters to stop any decent healthcare reform, but it is quite clear that the system is one huge mess.

Neither can the public and corp. owned hospitals either. Medicare is being used as a tool and Medicare acceptance will be key to anyone's survival with the coming onslaught of retirees.

The monster hospital conglomerates are on board and have been lobbying against the physician owned facilities for years. THese monster hospitals have nothing to worry about and they have gobbled up every smaller community hospital within a 75 mile radius of where I live. It is either Cleveland Clinic or University Hospital with a few exceptions that aren't long for this world.

HCR was all about expanding coverage and services and yet they are specifically targeting this specific group of hospitals who want to expand coverage and service. Why single these guys out? Perhaps to appease the AHA lobby. Why not let them compete and let people choose? These small hospitals pose absolutely no threat to the much larger General Hospitals.

I thought HCR was supposed to be for the people It is just another avenue for more govt. interference and red tape.

[edit on 14-4-2010 by jibeho]

People are missing the point. The Business Week article (which clearly almost no one bothered to read) explains WHY HCR is curtailing physician-owned hospitals. Instead of hacking away at one another why not try and understand the reasoning behind the restrictions.

HHS publsihes a Health Systems Plan periodically in ordr to guide region's healthcare infrastructure planning. It does that so that every community has access to the types of hospital-based services it needs without duplication. Hospitals are exceedingly expensive entities. The idea is that every hospital serving a geographical area covers part of the overall service needs without unnecessary duplication of specialized equipment and services.

In the case of for-profit physician-owned hospitals they are trying to avoid institutions that skim-off the most-profitable services leaving publicly supported hospitals to pick up the least profitable.

They should all be non-profits.

I don't think any business should be allowed to make money off of the misery of others. Hospitals and insurance companies should both be non-profits.

The whole argument that businesses are more efficient when they are out to make money is a bunch of nonsense in my opinion.