Twenty surgical organizations, led by the American College of Surgeons, sent a letter to the U.S. Senate today stating they are prepared to oppose the Senate's health care reform bill because it will threaten patient access and harm quality. Surgeons state that as the legislation currently stands, it fails to address some of the fundamental problems that plague the health care system.
"We strongly support health care reform that will expand access to quality surgical and medical care to as many Americans as possible, but we cannot support legislation that puts at risk both quality of care and patient access," said A. Brent Eastman, MD, FACS, chair of the American College of Surgeons' (ACS) Board of Regents and chief medical officer, Scripps Health. "Our system is badly in need of reform but if the legislation does not address these concerns, it will do little to fix its underlying problems and may make it worse."
The surgical groups said they plan to oppose the Senate health care reform bill if a number of provisions that were included in the Senate Finance bill are retained. In addition to failing to permanently fix Medicare's broken physician payment system and to include any meaningful proven medical liability reforms, the surgical community opposes a number of the bill's provisions including:
- The legislation establishes a Medicare Commission that would shift the responsibility for making difficult Medicare payment and coverage decisions to an unelected Executive branch agency without appropriate checks and balances.
- The legislation includes mandatory participation in the seriously flawed Physician Quality Reporting Initiative (PQRI) - a program through which CMS is still attempting to address systemic problems dating back to 2007.
- The legislation attempts to improve patient access to certain physician services through reimbursement changes, but funds these changes through payment cuts to all other physicians - thereby exacerbating workforce shortages, including general surgeons.
"The result of these serious deficiencies will make it more difficult for the American people to receive the surgical care they will need in the future. We will work with the Senate to improve the legislation, but if these shortcomings remain in the final Senate bill, we will have no choice but to urge Senators to vote no," Dr. Eastman added.