Doctor continues work for real health reform
by By Cherry Rushin
(Posted 12/1/2009 04:44 pm)
newsdesk@grahamleader.com
Earlier this month, Dr. Donald Behr was invited to attend a conference for the Physicians’ Council for Responsible Reform. The group, a special project of the National Republican Congressional Committee, included several Republican congressman, many who also happen to be physicians.
Behr said he was asked the make the trip to D.C. because of his political involvement on the state level. For the last seven years, he has served as a member of the Texas Medical Association’s Committee for Rural Health and is also a past chairman of the organization.
Behr said the approximately 100 doctors from across the country who attended the Nov. 4 meeting did so in an effort to wade through the complicated medical reform House bill.
He said so many people are talking about the bill like they are authorities when hardly anyone has read the massive nearly 2,000-page legislation, and it was interesting to hear the matter discussed by lawmakers who have practiced medicine.
“Most of people have no idea when they get up there and say things, and that really bothers me,” said Behr. “They talk my language. They know about taking care of patients, and none of them were bureaucrat doctors either.”
Behr said two days after the conference, Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s house bill passed, but one purpose of the meeting was to encourage doctors to get other doctors involved and talk to their patients about health care reform.
Although Behr believes health care reform is necessary, he takes issue with the lengthy bill specifying what has to be done without a way to finance it.
“We need to cut the cost of health care, but this bill doesn’t do that. In our hospital, we are going to be required to spend at the very, very minimum one and half million dollars to get a new electronic medical records system,” he said. “That $1.5 million is not going to allow us to take care of more patients or offer any new services. Our hospital doesn’t make an extra $1.5 million a year. The point is, if it’s not going to help you take care of patients, why do we have to do it? It costs more money.”
Behr also disagrees with the notion that just passing a bill now and fixing it later is wise.
“All I have to say is name one thing the federal government starts that they stop,” he said. “There’s supposedly a hundred new bureaucracies formed by the new bill.”
Two particular faults Behr finds in the house bill are regarding defensive medicine and tort reform.
“The house bill has money in it to give the states that want to try to cut down the cost of torts, but with two caveats. One, they can’t cut lawyers fees and two, they can’t put caps on damages. So in other words, they can’t have any meaningful tort reform,” he said.
Behr added that since Texas has put its reforms in place, his malpractice insurance cost has been cut in half, and Texas will not be eligible for any of the funding in this section of the bill because of the caps on damages.
To define defensive medicine, Behr gave an example of a healthy 40-year-old who visits a doctor with a cough. With defensive medicine, instead of simply treating the patient for bronchitis, a chest X-ray and lab work must be performed to make sure an unlikely diagnosis is not missed.
“It’s inflating the costs of treatment by requiring expensive tests that for the most part are not going to find anything wrong,” he said. “When I went to medical school, I was taught that if you hear hoof beats, you look for horses not zebras, but now we look for every zebra because we might get sued. There’s an old saying that the most expensive thing in health care is a doctor with a pen because that’s how we write orders for medicine and tests.”
Behr said the single-payer plan or Medicare for all is a bad idea.
“The fact is our hospital writes off more money from the underpayments from Medicare than the no payments from the uninsured. ... If every patient was a Medicare patient, most hospitals could not stay open,” he said.
Behr said the bottom line is all of the proposed legislation thus far is financially unsound with disastrous potential.
“This health care reform, as written, either through the House or Senate bill, both are going to add tremendous layers of cost and bureaucracy to health care,” he said. “This is the opposite of what is needed, which is to cut the cost of health care.”
by By Cherry Rushin
(Posted 12/1/2009 04:44 pm)
newsdesk@grahamleader.com
Earlier this month, Dr. Donald Behr was invited to attend a conference for the Physicians’ Council for Responsible Reform. The group, a special project of the National Republican Congressional Committee, included several Republican congressman, many who also happen to be physicians.
Behr said he was asked the make the trip to D.C. because of his political involvement on the state level. For the last seven years, he has served as a member of the Texas Medical Association’s Committee for Rural Health and is also a past chairman of the organization.
Behr said the approximately 100 doctors from across the country who attended the Nov. 4 meeting did so in an effort to wade through the complicated medical reform House bill.
He said so many people are talking about the bill like they are authorities when hardly anyone has read the massive nearly 2,000-page legislation, and it was interesting to hear the matter discussed by lawmakers who have practiced medicine.
“Most of people have no idea when they get up there and say things, and that really bothers me,” said Behr. “They talk my language. They know about taking care of patients, and none of them were bureaucrat doctors either.”
Behr said two days after the conference, Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s house bill passed, but one purpose of the meeting was to encourage doctors to get other doctors involved and talk to their patients about health care reform.
Although Behr believes health care reform is necessary, he takes issue with the lengthy bill specifying what has to be done without a way to finance it.
“We need to cut the cost of health care, but this bill doesn’t do that. In our hospital, we are going to be required to spend at the very, very minimum one and half million dollars to get a new electronic medical records system,” he said. “That $1.5 million is not going to allow us to take care of more patients or offer any new services. Our hospital doesn’t make an extra $1.5 million a year. The point is, if it’s not going to help you take care of patients, why do we have to do it? It costs more money.”
Behr also disagrees with the notion that just passing a bill now and fixing it later is wise.
“All I have to say is name one thing the federal government starts that they stop,” he said. “There’s supposedly a hundred new bureaucracies formed by the new bill.”
Two particular faults Behr finds in the house bill are regarding defensive medicine and tort reform.
“The house bill has money in it to give the states that want to try to cut down the cost of torts, but with two caveats. One, they can’t cut lawyers fees and two, they can’t put caps on damages. So in other words, they can’t have any meaningful tort reform,” he said.
Behr added that since Texas has put its reforms in place, his malpractice insurance cost has been cut in half, and Texas will not be eligible for any of the funding in this section of the bill because of the caps on damages.
To define defensive medicine, Behr gave an example of a healthy 40-year-old who visits a doctor with a cough. With defensive medicine, instead of simply treating the patient for bronchitis, a chest X-ray and lab work must be performed to make sure an unlikely diagnosis is not missed.
“It’s inflating the costs of treatment by requiring expensive tests that for the most part are not going to find anything wrong,” he said. “When I went to medical school, I was taught that if you hear hoof beats, you look for horses not zebras, but now we look for every zebra because we might get sued. There’s an old saying that the most expensive thing in health care is a doctor with a pen because that’s how we write orders for medicine and tests.”
Behr said the single-payer plan or Medicare for all is a bad idea.
“The fact is our hospital writes off more money from the underpayments from Medicare than the no payments from the uninsured. ... If every patient was a Medicare patient, most hospitals could not stay open,” he said.
Behr said the bottom line is all of the proposed legislation thus far is financially unsound with disastrous potential.
“This health care reform, as written, either through the House or Senate bill, both are going to add tremendous layers of cost and bureaucracy to health care,” he said. “This is the opposite of what is needed, which is to cut the cost of health care.”
