The Mayo Clinic, praised by President Barack Obama as a national model for efficient health care, will stop accepting Medicare patients as of tomorrow at one of its primary-care clinics in Arizona, saying the U.S. government pays too little.
Mayo’s hospital and four clinics in Arizona, including the Glendale facility, lost $120 million on Medicare patients last year, Yardley said. The program’s payments cover about 50 percent of the cost of treating elderly primary-care patients at the Glendale clinic, he said.
Those greedy, selfish doctors. They only want to help themselves and those horrible insurance companies. Except, you know, health insurance companies only made about 2.2% profit in 2008. And those doctors are just trying to succeed in their chosen careers, running businesses (offices and hospitals, or in this case the Mayo Clinic), raising families, and paying off an average of $140,000 in medical school debt.
Let’s do some basic reasoning, shall we? It costs money to treat patients. The medical equipment, the drugs, the cost the building, salaries for receptionists, accountants, and other administrative staff… well, the list could go on, but I don’t have all day here. Since it costs money to treat people, medical professionals charge their patients for their services. Just like one pays for their home, clothing, groceries, transportation, and other necessities and/or frivolities. That’s just the way life works. If you want something, including medical care, you pay for it or find someone willing to give it to you.
Insert the government. The government has stepped into an arena where it has no business being, and demands that doctors not charge certain patients more than a given amount, regardless of the patient’s history or circumstances, and regardless of how much it actually costs to treat that patient. As stated above, the Mayo Clinic was only able to charge the government for about half of the cost spent treating Medicare patients. Well, the Mayo Clinic has bills to pay, so they have to get that money from somewhere. Guess where? The privately patients paying out of pocket or through their own private health insurance. Which is one of many reasons health insurance is so expensive.
The Mayo Clinic has given up trying to recoup any of the money lost to a government run health plan. They need to pay their bills. They need to make a profit so they can hire more doctors and researchers and scientists to discover and develop new ways to fight disease and illness. They can’t keep bleeding money to the government, and it’s not fair to their other patients, who have to involuntarily pick up the extra expenses.
How long before other facilities close their doors to government health care plans? How long before the government will force them to remain open? How long before the doctors quit? How long before the government forces them to remain doctors? I know it sounds extreme, but let’s follow the line along the path. The government will make it so unpleasant and unprofitable to practice medicine that no one will want to do it. Then to “fix” the problem that it created, the government might begin assigning careers to people…like they do in Communist China.
That’s a worst case scenario, of course. But why even take one step down that path? Let’s turn around and run the other way. Let’s privatize health care again. It’s the only system proven to truly work.
