Bush : Proposes 530m Cut For Cancer Drugs

The bush administration represents that the bulk of these cuts will not effect cancer patients, but will primarily effect over payments to doctors. Doctors argue that the cuts do not consider the doctors cost of nurses, treatment rooms and equipment.



"Compassionate Conservatism" the bush battle cry in 2000 rings hollow if you one of the patients that requires a variety of medical treatments that are being cut. Perhaps bush is hoping that the cancer patients will be too ill to vote in November or will be dead.

[edit on 27-7-2004 by John bull 1]

He needs money for that false war from somewhere.
Where better than from the sick and the poor?

Go Bush, Go!

[edit on 27-7-2004 by shanti23]

These drugs are very important to a great many people, but this thread has received little or no response. I suppose I should have put "marijuana" in the title rather than "cancer drugs" and I have no doubt that posts would have come flooding into this thread.

Just shaking my head.
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Originally posted by df1
These drugs are very important to a great many people, but this thread has received little or no response.
Just shaking my head.
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"Compassionate Conservatism" the bush battle cry in 2000 rings hollow if you one of the patients that requires a variety of medical treatments that are being cut. Perhaps bush is hoping that the cancer patients will be too ill to vote in November or will be dead.

I think that you are not getting a response because you misrepresented what the article states.

The plan is to stop Medicare from continuing to pay the ridiculous prices that the medical community has been charging.

Drugs dispensed in doctors' offices to treat lung illnesses, for which Medicare pays 90 percent more than the actual sales price, also would be affected by the proposed changes, he said.

90% more than actual sales price?, I would think that this is a responsible reaction to these gross overcharges, and any medical facility crying foul and threatening to stop there cancer treatments and send the patients to hospitals, are only confirming the fact that they are only concerned with profits and not with the patients.

What do the doctor's say?

The law called for tying reimbursements for chemotherapy drugs more closely to the price doctors, pay rather than the listed wholesale price. Doctors pay less than that price because drug companies give them substantial discounts.

While doctors acknowledge they have been overpaid for the drugs, they maintain they have been underpaid for their practice expenses such as nurses, equipment and treatment rooms and complain that the new law does not do enough to address that issue.

So they accept the fact that they overcharge and instead of explaining the overcharges,they try and change the issue entirely by bringing in a whole new slew of things to confuse the issue.

I think it is proper for the gov't to make sure they are getting our moneys worth, if they did nothing the same people complaining about this, would only complain that they are paying the 90% price gouge.

How many other cancer patients could you help with the $530 million saved by the new law?

Have you considered that?



SP:edit

[edit on 27-7-2004 by JacKatMtn]

Originally posted by df1
The bush administration represents that the bulk of these cuts will not effect cancer patients, but will primarily effect over payments to doctors. Doctors argue that the cuts do not consider the doctors cost of nurses, treatment rooms and equipment.

The above is what I stated in the portion of news submission form which is used to specify what is contained in the article. The administration and doctors disagree. This is factual and contains no editorial content from me.

"Compassionate Conservatism" the bush battle cry in 2000 rings hollow if you one of the patients that requires a variety of medical treatments that are being cut. Perhaps bush is hoping that the cancer patients will be too ill to vote in November or will be dead.

The portion following the article expresses my take on the article as the news submission form asks and it appropriately contains my editorial commentary.

The point of posting is so that you and others can agree or disagree, which you have done quite well. My concern was not your disagreement, but that no opinion was expressed at all. And issues like this are certainly more important than debating recreational drugs, which always receives a mountain of posts.
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Originally posted by df1
The point of posting is so that you and others can agree or disagree, which you have done quite well. My concern was not your disagreement, but that no opinion was expressed at all. And issues like this are certainly more important than debating recreational drugs, which always receives a mountain of posts.
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Point taken, at least we feel that it is an important issue and while we may disagree on the implications of the law, we can agree that the issue merits discussion.

There is one thing i dont understand, are these doctors working for the state or are they working privately?

Originally posted by ArMaP
There is one thing i dont understand, are these doctors working for the state or are they working privately?

I see you are from Portugal, hope everything is well there.

As for the doctors, the majority of the doctor's in the US are private or working in corporate medical facilities, while there are some government doctors,(military physicians come to mind) I believe that this law is targetted at private facilities.

Everything is fine here, thank you, just a little hotter than i like (95 degrees Fahrenheit).

I asked because here in Portugal most doctors work for the state, besides having their own offices, because the state pays a large percentage of the health expenses we have.

My father died last year with cancer, and all the drugs he was taking were paid by the state, wich was good, because just one drug that he was taking costs around 250 dollars, and we could not afford prices like that.

If in the USA they pay the doctors above the price of the drugs, then being a doctor is a good work, because you are beeing subsidized by the state.

PS: please excuse me for my english, i know i need to learn how to write properly.

Originally posted by ArMaP
PS: please excuse me for my english, i know i need to learn how to write properly.

Your English is fine, I can understand you completely.
My condolences on the loss of your father, and let's hope they can find a cure before we lose others to this disease.

The problem here is greed, take the $250 you would be charged for the drug, if the doctor's here charge the government 90% more, our taxpayers are being ripped off for $225 for a total charge to the taxpayers of $475.

This is beyond ridiculous, I can understand maybe a 10% hike to help cover their expenses, but how can you justify 90% for just giving you medicines that the doctor's themselves didn't create or make.

It is just pitiful that the doctor's would do this and still claim they care for the people they treat.

Now I do not claim that all doctors and facilities are taking part in this scam, but there must be enough of them doing it in order for our government to come up with a new law to prevent it from happening.

It's too bad that there's overcharging for this drug, but how many other Medicare services are the doctors providing below cost due to government price fixing? The way this story was played on our local news today mentioned that doctors didn't feel bad overcharging in this one instance since they were being taken to the bank for other services.

So, while they'll now charge a lower price for this drug, they'll try to make up the difference somewhere else. Price fixing should be removed from Medicare & the doctors should be allowed to charge the government what they charge their private customers (free market competition) - it would balance things out & help control the rise in overall prices of health care.