by Thomas Del Beccaro
BigGovernment.com
12/6/2009
If you would like a pre-Obama Care window into the possible future of American Health Care–if Democrats in Congress are successful in passing their sweeping health care legislation, you need look no further than government imposed rationing of heart disease prevention in this country. It is a travesty in the making and should demonstrate to everyone the capricious nature of government control over our health care.
I am writing of the Obama Administration’s – regulatory decision – to go ahead with a massive cut in Medicare payments to cardiologists. I emphasize that this is a regulatory decision because it was not made by the Congress legislatively (not that that would be ok) but, instead, it was made by the massive Health and Human Services Department of the US Government. Given the limited resources of the Medicare budget, in order to increase payments to general practitioners (in an effort to attract more such doctors – a good idea), bureaucrats needed to gore somebody’s ox and cardiologists were chosen (a horrible idea).
The decision to do so is astonishing.
Keep in mind that the very purpose of health care is to improve the health and therefore the lives of Americans. The cardiologist community has been wildly successful in that endeavor. Although heart disease remains the #1 killer of Americans, the mortality rate for heart attacks has plummeted. For instance, the post-heart attack, 30-day mortality rate decreased from 18.9 percent in 1995 to 16.1 percent in 2006 and the in-hospital mortality rate decreased from 14.6 percent to 10.1 percent.
Further, between 1994 and 2006, the mortality rate among women 55 and under who suffered a heart attack dropped an incredible 52.9%. For men in that same age group the drop was 33.3%. According to the author of the mortality study that determined those latter figures: “It appears that risk factors, which may be controlled through prevention efforts, are very important in driving these mortality reductions.”
Given those figures, it is hard to argue with the success of cardiologists who sit on the forefront of heart care and heart disease prevention – unless, of course, you are a government bureaucrat.
The article continues at BigGovernment.
