Comment: Obamacare is a smorgasbord for special interests, including Big Hospitals. Think all hospitals are warm and cuddly, on the side of the angels? Think again.
“Big, monolithic community hospitals have been trying for years to quash these upstart physician-owned hospitals that provide better, more efficient care with higher-rated outcomes. The main reasons: The big hospitals don’t like the competition from the efficient, quality innovators. Unfortunately, they have succeeded in using the power of big government to try to squash them.”
““Doc-owned hospitals prep to fight,” a purported news article by reporter Alicia Mundy, uses innuendo as fact. Congress, she writes, “wanted to clamp down on a sector that some policy experts contend is prone to perform unnecessary procedures at high prices, driving up overall health spending.” But she provides no evidence to support her claim.”
“In fact, nine of the top 10 performing U.S. hospitals listed last December by the government’s Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services were physician-owned hospitals. Yet the ACA forbids these facilities from expanding and bans new ones from opening.”
“The ban on this competition is supported by the American Hospital Association and the Federation of American Hospitals, which lobbied hard for including the ban in the health law.”
“But at the very end of her article, Mundy admits that “new Medicare measurements showing that doctor-owned hospitals represent about half of the top 100 facilities whose performance will merit bonus Medicare reimbursements because of their cost efficiency and patient satisfaction.””
“Members of the Physicians Hospitals of America are in Washington this week to talk with Congress and administration officials about their results and the need to expand to serve patients. Existing facilities are extending their hours and doing surgeries on weekends to serve growing patient demand. They are asking Congress to loosen the limits on hospital expansion and allow facilities that were partially completed when the health law passed to open.”
Another attack on innovative care
By Grace-Marie Turner
Founder, Galen Institute
Circulated by BGR Government Affairs, LLC
May 14, 2013