CHAPTER INITIATES MASSIVE WASHINGTON D.C. LEGISLATIVE EFFORT

Just in time for USA Weekends Make A Difference Day, a day of service, a time to put your cares on hold for one day to care for someone else, members of California’s Palm Springs Chapter are headed to Washington, D.C. on a very special mission.

Gents:

For your info, attached is the Palm Springs Chapter’s effort to address the MEDICARE/TRICARE Fee issue. If you have comments, recommendations please feel free.

Regards,

Bob

ROBERT RAMIREZ, CWO4, USN (RET)
President
Palm Springs Chapter

Military Officers Association of America
Palm Springs Chapter/California

Washington Visit—April 21-28, 2007

***AGENDA ***

1. Dual Purpose:

a. Initiate contact with specific national organizations and their legislative affairs advocates to structure a unified organizational constituent campaign, timed to impact federal legislation regarding the repeal of the flawed Sustainable Growth Rate law affecting Medicare reimbursement rates to physicians

b. Initiate nationwide liability reform legislation during the two year period 2007 and 2008 that would achieve significant health care cost savings.

2. Fact Finding and Collaboration: Discuss and understand the positions that each agency (The Military Officer Association of America together with The Military Coalition, The American Medical Association, The American College of Cardiology, The American Association of Retired Persons, Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, and the Alliance of Specialty Medicine) has relative to the two stated purposes.

3. Establish Congressional Liaison Contacts: With each organization visited discuss past and pending legislative bills associated with the two stated purposes. Keep appointments with California congressional members (Senators Boxer and Feinstein, Representatives Bono and Drier) during the first April 2007 visit. Discuss with other Congressional members the two issues prior to second follow-up visit in May 2007.

4. Obtain Organizational Statistics on the Two Issues: Determine the true economic and physician impact of current SGR and Medical Liability Reform on each organization, the nation, and each state according to the perspective of each organization. Inquire as to the latest verifiable statistics on access of patients to physicians and physician costs of having a medical practice. Seek to understand the full operation of the SGR as defining the expenditure target under which the physician payment rate conversion factor is created.

5. Evaluate Alternatives: Obtain input from each organization their views on each of the following:

a. Removing from the SGR the rate of growth and the cost of Medicare Part B drugs which is beyond the control of physicians;

b. Using the Medical Economic Index (MEI) instead of the SGR;

c. Repealing the SGR without replacing it with a new expenditure target and encouraging Congress to accelerate adoption of approaches for improving incentives for physicians to furnish higher quality care at a lower cost; Congress would have to make explicit decisions about how to update physician payments;

d. Repealing the SGR and replacing it with a new expenditure target system, adjusted on a regional basis, while incentivizing physicians and hospitals to work together to reduce the costs of care without sacrificing quality.

e. Raising Medicare Taxes; and

f. Changing current income tax system to a Consumption Tax.

6. Goal of the Palm Springs Chapter: Alert organizations and Congress that the “train has left the station”. In California, at least, we are waving good by to our quality doctors who have either quit taking Medicare patients or who have given notice they may need to quit in the future due to unacceptable reimbursement rates that do not cover the cost of maintaining a medical practice. Organizations must work together to mobilize and capitalize upon combining constituent power to maximize the impact on Congress for needed action. The average citizen, and most doctors, can no longer wait for more years to pass before an actual resolution of the flawed SGR law affecting reimbursement rate cuts to physicians as well as the initiation of nationwide Medical liability reform is made by Congress. We owe it to our military and all seniors to put territorial positions aside and come up with a satisfactory solution to what everybody knows is desperately needed.

7. Plan of the Palm Springs Chapter: Brief and discuss our “Call to Action” plan with concerned National organizations and Congressional members as well as taking to selected states the need to become citizen activitists during the next two years. There is a definite need for SGR and Medical Liability Reform. That reform can be achieved through collaborative efforts and must be done before there is a collapse of the United States system of medicine for all groups most at risk for keeping access to our quality doctors.

8. Conclusion: By working together in the future with an aggressive, continuous constituent base-response, Congress can be impacted in forthcoming elections. We would appreciate it if you could email updates to us on the work you are doing in the subject areas we have discussed today. We will need that information as we continue to interact with Congressional members and staffers. Because we have access to physicians in the Palm Springs—Rancho Mirage area of California like those at Eisenhower Medical Center and Desert Cardiology Center on that campus, we know the comfort of having some of the finest doctors in the nation. We want all Americans to have that same type quality physician access. When the people speak with one united voice politicians tend to listen as they want to maintain power most of all and win elections above all else. Our continued work with Congress will hopefully have a positive impact on our collective issues.

***Acknowledgment is made that information obtained in our presentation is taken from and//or a compilation of information from the American Medical Association, American College of Cardiology, MedPAC, Alliance of Specialty Medicine, the American Association of Retired Persons, and the Military Officers Association of America

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