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Harry Reid Plan to Buy Support of U.S. Physicians for Obama Health Reform Fails in Senate

Christian Medical and Dental Association lambasted the plan as being borne of "desperation"

By Peter J. Smith

WASHINGTON, D.C., October 21, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Senator Majority Leader Harry Reid was dealt a heavy blow Wednesday in his attempt to pass a bill intended to secure physicians support for pending healthcare legislation by preventing a staggering drop in Medicare reimbursement rates that will otherwise occur over the next ten years.

David Stevens, MD, CEO of the Christian Medical and Dental Association lambasted the plan as being borne of "desperation" and an example of "how morally bankrupt this politicization of medicine is becoming." He said that rather than attempting to buy the support of the country's physicians with money, Reid should instead be focusing on how to gain their support by ensuring the protection of conscience rights.

Reid's plan had to do with changes to the current reimbursement schedule for Medicare, which has the nation's doctors facing a 21 percent cut in payments starting in January 2010 - a serious financial loss for medical professionals who take Medicare patients. With the US dollar facing an unsteady future, medical professionals would take a serious hit as millions of baby-boomers begin to join the Medicare rolls. On top of that, another six percent in cuts are scheduled for 2011 and 2012.

Sen. Reid (D-Nev.) failed to get enough support behind Sen. Debbie Stabenow's (D-Mich.) plan to freeze for 10 years the cut in rates prescribed by the Medicare physician payment formula. According to an Associated Press analysis, the move was designed to lock in the support of the American Medical Association, which claims 240,000 members and 134,000 practicing physicians - just under a quarter of the United State's 800,000 doctors. The AMA has extended support to Obama's push for reforms, but it has insisted that malpractice reform and increasing Medicare rates for doctors are essential to any reform of the health-care system.

Reid and other leading Democrats separated the reimbursement plan from the other health-reform bills in the Senate, as it would add $247 billion to their cost. If the plan were part of the Finance Committee's reform bill, it would put the $774 billion plan well over the $1 trillion mark, and far above President Obama's demand that the reform cost under $900 billion.

However, Senators were not convinced, and the vote for cloture failed 47 - 53.

Reid says he is now contemplating a more incremental freeze in decreased pay rates for Medicare doctors, that would take place over the next two years rather than ten.

However, other medical associations are saying that buying off the support of physicians to support the current versions of health-care reform coming from the Senate would be a "watershed moment" that would mark "the de-professionalization of medicine."

"If professional medical organizations were to play along with Reid's scheme of halting Medicare cuts in exchange for physicians' support of his healthcare bill, they would be selling their birthright," said David Stevens, MD, CEO of the Christian Medical and Dental Association in a statement.

"If physicians abandon their professed commitment to the patient's welfare in order to solely pursue financial reward, patients will pay the price - some with their lives."

The Christian Medical and Dental Association boasts approximately 16,000 members, and has opposed the current reforms on the basis of their interference in doctor-patient relationships, and lack of conscience protections for physicians with moral or religious objections to procedures such as abortion.

Stevens cited an Investors Business Daily poll released in September that revealed 45 percent of physicians would consider quitting the practice of medicine if the healthcare legislation under consideration in Congress becomes law.

"Add to that data what a national survey of faith-based physicians found: That 95 percent are ready to leave medicine if a weakening of conscience protections would force them to violate their conscientiously held convictions."

"The question that Mr. Reid and his colleagues should be asking," said Stevens, "is not how to buy off the ever-shrinking AMA or a small cadre of cash-conscious doctors, but how to accommodate the concerns of the vast majority of principled physicians who value conscience rights and want to keep the government from interfering with the physician-patient relationship."

See related coverage by LifeSiteNews.com:

U.S. Bishops Will "Vigorously" Oppose Health Care if Abortion Concerns Not Addressed
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/oct/09100807.html

Down the Hatch: Senate Committee Torpedoes Pro-Life Amendments to Healthcare
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/sep/09093010.html

New Poll Reveals Obama's Plan To Scrap Conscience Protection Extremely Unpopular
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/apr/09040903.html

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