Robison, 73. lives on Odell Avenue. Like many other senior citizens. Robison lives on a fixed income that may be jeopardized because she may have to pay more for medicine.
"From what I gather, there will be cuts to Medicare," she said. "Since I'm on Medicare. I'm worried. When you are on a fixed income, it makes it rough."
Health care reform takes $500 billion over 10 years from the future growth of Medicare, according to the AARP, the nation's largest senior organization. Seniors who use Medicare Advantage plans — private plans combining hospital, physician and drug coverage — could see their premiums increased and benefits decreased, according to the AARP.
Dr. John Frich has served thousands of patients since he started practicing as a radiology oncologist in 1965. During that time, Frich said he has seen government's effect on health care.
But with the introduction of Medicare/Medicaid in the 1960s, Frich said, in order to meet the cost of employees and maintain their practice, doctors had to increase the number of patients seen since they got paid less per visit.
Costs also increased with the rising price of malpractice insurance, so instead of seeing 20 patients per day a doctor now sees 50-60. This leads to less time spent with each patient, which is mostly used to decide what tests and images to order and not a true history and physical (H&P)to determine how to treat the patient, he said.
"Back before Medicare/Medicaid, when someone came in to be treated, we just looked at their ability to pay," he said. "If they were unable to pay, then we worked out an arrangement or provided services for free. Everybody received medical care. No one was turned away. Then government programs came along and made it so you couldn't do that. Every time government gets involved with anything, it makes it worse."
Frich said there will not be enough physicians to care for the additional 30 to 50 million people who will now be insured through the new legislation.
"You are going to have to take care away frcm some people to give it to others," he said. "That's not fair."
Frich is skeptical about how the new plan emphasizes preventive care. "We've been trying to do that for the past 30 to 40 years, but people still smoke and drink and live unhealthy lifestyles." he said. "This will be a dead end."
For decades, McAteer's restaurant has been serving Irish fare among tasty morsels to legions of customers. Tim McAteer, owner, said the restaurant en-ploys five fulltime and four part-time workers. He has looked into providing health insurance for his employees, but "it is very cost prohibitive, so we can't do it." As a small business owner, health care reform is something McAteer wants to know more about.
"I don't know a whole lot about it yet, but I'm concerned about how this is going to affect the restaurant," he said.
The health care bill will affect businesses of all sizes, from IBM to McAteer's, but in different ways. By 2014, companies with 25 or fewer employees will be able to get tax credits toward the purchase of health insurance. Small business owners and uninsured self-employed people will be able to get benefits through Small Business Health Options programs. These state-managed marketplace exchanges will work with carriers to pool insurance options, ideally making health insurance more cost effective.
E-mail J. Miles Lavton at mlayton@timeswv.com.
Copyright (c)2010 Times West Virginia 03/29/2010