[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 129 (Wednesday, September 24, 1997)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1843]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                               THE GREEDY

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. FORTNEY PETE STARK

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                     Wednesday, September 24, 1997

  Mr. STARK. Mr. Speaker, a move is underway to let doctors force 
patients to give up their Medicare benefits so that a handful of 
doctors can charge them anything they want--without limit.
  This is a gift to the greediest doctors in the nation.
  Ninety-five percent of the Nation's doctors accept new Medicare 
patients and the Medicare fee schedule. The independent congressional 
advisory panel known as the Physician Payment Review Commission reports 
that this is comparable to the rate of doctors who are accepting new 
private, non-Medicare patients. In other words, there is no noticeable 
difference in access--ability to see a doctor--between Medicare and 
non-Medicare patients.
  Doctors who accept Medicare and its fee schedule understand the 
Hippocratic Oath and the social compact in which society has paid 
hundreds of billions of dollars for the education and training and 
research that make American doctors special and in turn, these doctors 
accept the Medicare payment system.
  But Congress is about to cater to the few who want more, more, more 
from people in their hour of illness.
  The Employee Benefit Research Institute in its September, 1997 Issue 
Brief shows what a special gift this legislation will be to a few 
doctors who are out of step with their colleagues:

       Recent findings indicate that only between 4 percent and 6 
     percent of physicians accepting new patients were not 
     accepting new Medicare patients. One survey found that 
     between 1991 and 1992, the proportion of physicians not 
     accepting new Medicare patients increased from 4 percent to 
     5.9 percent (Lee and Gillis, 1994). The same survey found 
     that between 1992 and 1993 the percentage of physicians not 
     accepting new Medicare patients decreased to 4.7 percent. 
     Surveys by the Physician Payment Review Commission (PPRC) 
     also found that in 1993 less than 5 percent of physicians 
     were not accepting new Medicare patients (Physician Payment 
     Review Commission, 1994). The PPRC study concluded that the 
     implementation of the Medicare fee schedule has not caused 
     physicians to close their practices to Medicare patients.

     

                          ____________________