FINAL DRAFT OF PRESENTATION TO ORGANIZATIONS/CONGRESS

Greetings/Acknowledgements.

Good Morning/Afternoon. I would like to first introduce my two other Legislative Affairs Committee Members from our Palm Springs California, Chapter of the Retired Officers Association of America (MOAA): President, Robert Ramirez and Scholarship Chairperson, Patricia Barger.

I want to thank you for the opportunity to meet with you today and explain briefly why this trip to Washington DC is so important to our Chapter and our Legislative Affairs Committee. Also why this project has prompted us to make such an extraordinary effort to travel to Washington DC and embark on a serious of visits to selected states carrying a message of trying to save our doctors and preserve our American Health Care System which we honestly believe is in jeopardy of being forever changed in the near future.

To understand our mission let me relate a short story. A life changing event occurred at one of our Chapter dinner meetings in October, 2006 when one of our members was recognized to speak during the discussion period. He said he had some very devastating news to tell us. He began by speaking about his wife whom we all knew had just been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.

He said they both were very upset as they had just been told by their long time doctor, whom they considered to be a friend, that he was no longer going to be able to accept or keep them as Medicare patients due to the government’s reduced Medicare Reimbursement Payment Rates to Physicians, plus further reductions that were pending to take affect in January 2007.

(By the way, that was the first time the seriousness of Medicare payment rate cuts was brought home to us in a real personal sense. We had heard some talk previously about it, but no one had experienced the loss/potential loss of their own doctor(s) before).

Our member continued by saying their doctor related he was opting for a “Pay As You Go” system with a monthly retainer fee of $300 per patient member per month to retain the right to see him on a 24/7 basis.

Our member said he was concerned not only about the $600 per month retainer fee for that doctor (or $7,200 per year), but was also distraught that amount could even be magnified at any time by any, or all, of the rest of their doctors should those doctors decide to do the same thing. He reminded us that he has Congestive Heart Failure and that both he and his wife have a number of doctors they need to see for health purposes. He admitted he could not afford such a catastrophic health care cost.

Before he sat down, he said he just wanted to alert us as to what was happening in California and in our local area or what could be happening in the future. His heart rendering story left the gathering in tears. These two people were always there to support their organization, and they had both given service to their country. Now in their senior years they could not understand how they were going to cope with their illnesses, trying to find new doctors, and having to give up the physicians they had been going to for so long and for whom they liked, trusted, and had the utmost confidence.

After that meeting, Patricia, Robert, and I met to discuss the plight of our two friends and we decided to form a Legislative Affairs Committee to research the Medicare Payment Rate Cuts to Physicians. From November 2006 to the present, we have continued to research the issues and have been overwhelmed with the mass amount of information related to Medicare, Title XVIII of the US Code, Legislative Acts, and Organizational data that exists. Often there is conflict with statistics and economic impact on individuals, states, health organizations, national professional medical organizations, Congress and the Administration.

Compounding the Medicare reimbursement payment reduction issue is the associated problem of Medical Liability Reform which greatly impacts on massive increased health care costs to this nation. That issue also has not yet been resolved in Washington by either the Congress or the Administration.

As we reviewed the data, we asked the question, what can we possible do that will change any of this? What can one small chapter of MOAA in the Southwestern part of the United States possible do to change what the US Government, Professional, and various Organizations have not been able to do?

That prompted us to try and remember what we were taught back in college in Seminar classes when the professor said, “Think about the problem and WHAT IF the situation you might apply to develop a solution”.

Defining the Problem correctly was the first task. We ultimately agreed there was a Dual Problem: Repealing the flawed SGR law resulting in Medicare Reimbursement Payment Rate Cuts to Physicians to save our doctors and enacting nationwide Medical Liability Reform to achieve significant health care cost savings.

The first thing we looked at, was What had the medical profession tried and what was currently being tried by them? WHAT IF they tried something different? Then we noticed that the American Medical Association and the American College of Cardiology had energized their members to contact their Congressional Representatives in the past and had utilized an organized/coordinated method to bring the most attention of the concerns of their medical community to Congress. There seemed to be a real awareness of those two organizations on how to organize such a Communication response to Congress and those two organizations appeared to have great constituent response. This despite the reported news that much constituent response is blocked from ever reaching Congressional members.

Secondly, we examined our own national organization, MOAA, and found that the Medicare Reimbursement Payment Rate Cuts to Physicians and Medical Liability Reform had not been addressed. Not because it wasn’t important, but because MOAA was confronted with other pressing concerns for their members such as looming increases for Tricare fees. MOAA periodically includes a post card response to member’s monthly publication to their Congressional Members. WHAT IF we could meet with Admiral Ryan and Colonel Strobridge and convince them that Medicare Reimbursement Rate Cuts to Physicians and Medical Liability Reform was an issue deserving of Unity of Action with other organizations?

Thirdly, we looked at AARP to see what they had done in the area of Medicare Reimbursement Payment Rate Cuts to Physicians and Medical Liability Reform and did not find any effort on those two subjects from them. AARP however was very aggressive in their efforts to mobilize their constituent base on subjects such as pushing Congress to act for lower drug prices. AARP appears to be able to wage very effective constituent response to their action alerts. WHAT IF AARP could agree to negotiate with MOAA/AMA/ACC in a Unity of Action to initiate nationwide Medical Liability Reform and resolve Medicare Physician Payment Rate Cuts so their own members would not have to be without their doctor or a referral doctor due to physician retirement/change of state, Pay As You Go System?

Next we asked the question: “What if all four organizations met and decided that for the good of the American people and the United States Health Care System, they could come together for just 2 issues in one year (two years at most) and maximize their total constituent base to ignite the citizens of the country to let Congress know it was ABSOLUTELY VITAL that action be taken to repeal the flawed law of the Unsustainable Growth Rate (SGR) affecting the Medicare Reimbursement Rate Cuts to Physicians and to pass a nationwide Medical Liability Reform to drastically reduce costs to the nation’s health care system?”

That led us to research the membership total that could possible be brought to bear on this campaign and found that: 1) MOAA could muster about 13 Million military constituents (from all branches/all status), 2) AARP could add another 45 Million constituents; 3) AMA could account for _____ Million/Thousand member constituents; 4) ACC could contribute _____Thousand member constituent members; 5) Allied Specialty Medicine could add another ____ Thousand constituent members. The total number of possible constituents in those organizations was impressive and appeared to be a source of 60 million members. If even ten percent of those 60 million (some of whom belonged to 1 or more of the listed organizations) could be energized to support the 2 stated issues, Congress and the Administration might take notice and enact the necessary legislation to get the mission accomplished.

The natural question was, why had this not already been done by the above organizations? We thought about our experiences in the military and in civilian life and remembered there were times when a Command or Organization was under fire to get specific Unit/Department missions accomplished and they could not allow compromise of their issues with those of competing Commands or Organizations. Even when there were similar joint issues that could have been enhanced with mutual cooperation, there was stiff resistance to compromise. Certainly, it takes a lot to compromise one’s point of view with competing views of others. Negotiation through necessity often brings successful resolution of even the most contentious held opinions when the good of all is finally realized.

We found is there is a common ground for all of the listed organizations to come together and obtain, with the help of the American people, the desired improved health care system we all want for our nation. NO, it will not be perfect in the eyes of all or even most. But it will achieve the first incremental step needed is rescuing our doctors from fleeing their profession or starting a second tier health care system that will lock out many Americans from the very best medical doctors in the nation. As in our case in the Southern California Desert, we have access to a world class medical community like that at Eisenhower Medical Center and Desert Cardiology Center. We have Chapter MOAA members who cringe at the thought of ever losing access to those physicians. Yet we know the medical community can not survive the continued threat of year to year reduced Medicare payment rates, and they cannot afford the cost of doing business on that basis.

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