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In reply to the discussion: Cancer clinics are turning away thousands of Medicare patients. Blame the sequester. [View all]Yo_Mama
(8,303 posts)33. Well, if the doctors can't stay in business without treating it as a business???
Don't they need to treat it as a business? Right now most places take losses on some of their patients. But the reason these clinics are freaking out is that they will not be able to STAY OPEN if they do not start cutting patients.
They don't want to do it. Their alternative is not to be able to treat patients at all.
So many seem to assume that doctors are making tons of money, but actually they aren't on many of their patients. The higher prices the private insurance patients pay subsidizes Medicare and Medicaid patients. When reimbursements are cut enough, the subsidy from the other patients fails to cover the clinic expenses.
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Cancer clinics are turning away thousands of Medicare patients. Blame the sequester. [View all]
Redfairen
Apr 2013
OP
If Medicare negotiated drug prices then maybe the doctors could keep treating patients.
dkf
Apr 2013
#2
Medicare being able to negotiate drug prices was taken off the table ...
slipslidingaway
Apr 2013
#35
Here is an email that my wife received. It has info on responding to this issue.
Soundman
Apr 2013
#5
So our government has, in effect, created a plethora of death panels via the sequester and is about
indepat
Apr 2013
#13
Exactly...and Obama wants to cut the Social Security benefits of the ones who make it through this!
forestpath
Apr 2013
#15
I agree with you. I used to work for a doctor and she felt the exact same way too.
forestpath
Apr 2013
#19
Well, if the doctors can't stay in business without treating it as a business???
Yo_Mama
Apr 2013
#33
Lance Armstrong and LiveSTRONG will step up to organize the public, oh, wait. nt
proverbialwisdom
Apr 2013
#17
that is such crap. The reason health care is so expensive in this country is because doctors and
liberal_at_heart
Apr 2013
#40
So what I'm reading is that money is more important than saving people's lives.
Apophis
Apr 2013
#47