Taxing Cadillac Plans

Dr. Milton R. Wolf, who is a radiologist in Kansas, and Barack Obama’s second cousin once removed, and an outspoken opponent of Obamacare, wrote in the Washington Times on March 11,,

:

“As one example, consider the implications of Obamacare’s financial penalty aimed at your doctor if he seeks the expert care he has determined you need. If your doctor is in the top 10 percent of primary care physicians who refer patients to specialists most frequently–no matter how valid the reasons–he will face a 5 percent penalty on all their Medicare reimbursements for the entire year. This scheme is specifically designed to deny you the chance to see a specialist. Each year, the insidious nature of that arbitrary 10 percent rule will make things even worse as 100 percent of doctors try to stay off that list. Many doctors will try to avoid the sickest patients, and others will simply refuse to accept Medicare. Already, 42 percent of doctors have chosen that route, and it will get worse. Your mother’s shiny government-issued Medicare health card is meaningless without doctors who will accept it.”

This is beyond unbelievable. Truly it is out of Atlas Shrugged, in which the government-enforced egalitarian leveling process is shown to be a pursuit of death. The idea that under Obamacare the ten percent of primary care doctors who refer patients to specialists most frequently will be financially penalized means that ten percent of primary doctors cannot help but be penalized. Which means that all primary care physicians will strive not to recommend patients to specialists. Which means that the costs of health care will be controlled by ending healthcare. Which means that equality will be achieved by dragging everyone down to the level of an impoverished, Third-World country.—Nick Shiffman, S.B.