Who Wants Money?
The more I see of the Affordable Care Act, the more I hate it. It turns out that “dozens of hospital groups, health departments, doctor associations and others will get almost $700 million to improve patient care as part of the Obama administration’s initiative to overhaul payment methods for medical providers.” These grants are funded under the Affordable Care Act. Where the hell did this money suddenly come from and where is the $700 million going? Sounds like it is for administrators at these systems to pay themselves more as they sit at meetings creating new committees or action teams or whatever? That’s a lot of coffee and bagels.
This from the WSJ article I found it in:
The grant awards are part of a broader effort by the administration to move health systems and providers away from getting a fee for each service they provide and instead reward the quality of care patients receive. They also illustrate a shift away from implementing the health law to moves aimed at transforming patient care.
Ah, the evil fee for service. Meanwhile, everything else in this country is transacted via fee for service. I guess I will let that slide since DPC isn’t truly fee for service but then where the hell is my grant money? Oh, that’s right, it’s going into the “quality of care” initiatives. Which means what? Exactly. Unproven metrics via unproven mandates all with my tax money. What a bunch of crap.
PS: Who’s driving this bus anyway? 2015 ought to be remembered in the future – will be remembered in the future – as a year when metastatic melanoma took a huge shot in the chops, one of several steps towards making it a universally curable cancer in just a few years. Isn’t that worth dancing in the streets over, America? Instead of ICD and meaningful utilization and such?
Keep fighting for DPC! The propaganda message is that quality of care is something very hard and complex that needs a flotilla of special smarties to prognosticate on and tell you the “quality content.” It’s just like the temples of several dozen millennia ago, when the temple priests would take money and goods to put you in square with the local gods, so you could win your battle, catch that special someone, get over your embarrassing blemishes. The scam falls apart when there ain’t no gods, at least the kind what cares about such trivia.
“Quality” is just what you think it is. If you want to go ahead and pay thousands of dollars to those who will bloviate about it, okay. We’ve already got a Federal economic monolith to tell us that our economy is doing well, that jobs are better, that prosperity is around the corner.
Somehow, medicine got left behind the quality parade, because it’s so simple what medicine actually does. Granny’s dying until the doctor treats her, then she got better. It’s too obvious, even the local rubes get it, that the doctor did a good job. It takes YEARS of higher education to get someone who can understand that up is down, black is white, prosperity is poverty. Scold that bad-boy who saved Granny in an unauthorized way. Takes YEARS of higher education.
Administrative costs already suck up 25% of hospital charges–think about that, as it is a HUGE number. Anyhow, initiatives like this send another $700 million down that rat hole. Alas, there is no constituency other than a fringe group of doctors who sees the absolute evil in this. Keep fighting the good fight, Dr. Farrago!