EDITORIAL: Obamacare and us

June 27--The nation is now getting a teensy little taste of what Obamacare will be like when fully implemented.

Remember when in selling the program, President Obama was fond of telling a story about the elderly woman who grumbled that she didn't want any government health-care option and, by the way, "Keep your hands off my Medicare."

It always got a laugh. Well, thousands of Medicare recipients aren't laughing now -- not when signs went up in doctors' offices warning that new Medicare patients need not apply.

A roundup in USA Today last week of surveys by a number of state and national medical groups found that lowered government reimbursement rates were causing thousands of doctors to opt out of the system, limit new patients or limit the total number of Medicare patients in their practices.

In New York, 1,100 doctors have left the program entirely. A survey of Illinois physicians found 18 percent restrict the number of Medicare patients. A survey by the American Medical Association found that 31 percent of the primary care physicians polled have implemented similar restrictions.

An ongoing problem of low payments (in 2008, Medicare paid about 78 percent on average of the rate paid by private insurers) was exacerbated last week by a congressional stalemate that further cut doctors' fees for Medicare patients by 21 percent.

The Senate pulled the Medicare rate relief out of the stalled $120 billion jobs bill (subsequently reduced to a "mere" $85 billion), and after a week of digging her heels in, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi finally went along late Thursday night. By Friday, Obama had signed the bill, which grants doctors a six-month extension of rate relief.

And, yes, that would bring the issue back at the end of November -- after the election. Imagine that!

And that's when doctors and their Baby Boomer patients may face the full impact of Obamacare.

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