Volume 74, no. 10 On the eve of midterm elections, America is violently divided. There are “deplorables” (Hillary Clinton’s term) or “dregs” (Joe Biden’s term), who are supposedly the enemies and “haters” of an amalgamation of “oppressed” minorities. The supposed champions of the latter are the ones wearing masks, shouting slogans and obscenities, throwing rocks, […]
Both Democrats and Republicans are promising to preserve the Affordable Care Act’s popular “consumer protection” of people with pre-existing conditions. This is called guaranteed issue and community rating. Insurers cannot decline coverage, nor can they charge premiums based on risk (called underwriting). It is one of the main reasons why Exchange plans have become unaffordable […]
Medicaid expansion is on the November ballot in a number of states that have sizable rural populations, including Nebraska, Idaho, and Utah, as reported in AMA Morning Rounds for Sept 26. One rationale is that the uninsured rate for low-income adults in rural and small towns in expansion states is lower than in non-expansion states […]
Printable PDF available at: http://www.jpands.org/vol21no2/schlafly.pdf By Andrew L. Schlafly, Esq., “Show me the man and I’ll find you the crime” is a famous saying from the communist Soviet Union, where prosecutions of innocent people, and over-prosecutions of people for minor infractions, were routine. Similar sayings have existed in the United States, as in how a prosecutor […]
By Marilyn M. Singleton, MD, JD Our legislators have been at their worst over the Supreme Court confirmation of Judge Brett Kavanaugh. What a shameful display: condescending, arrogant show-boating senators questioning him in a manner reminiscent of the Grand Inquisitor. The only things missing from this B-grade movie were the rubber hoses and interrogation lights. […]
September 24, 2018 Dear Administrator Verma, We appreciate this opportunity to comment on the “Proposed Changes to Hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment and Ambulatory Surgical Center Payment Systems and Quality Reporting Programs” for 2019 as proposed in CMS-1695-P. The Association of American Physicians & Surgeons (“AAPS”) is a non-profit membership organization of physicians and surgeons who […]
“Differences in payment rates have unnecessarily shifted services away from the physician’s office to the higher paying hospital outpatient department,” admits CMS in the proposed 2019 rule for Medicare outpatient payment. CMS further reveals that payments made through Medicare’s Hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment System (OPPS), “[have] been the fastest growing sector of Medicare payments out of […]
[To read letter letter, scroll down or see https://goo.gl/56EqdK for PDF version.] Following Department of Justice approval of the Cigna / Express Scripts merger, AAPS took the opportunity to remind the DOJ why the proposed merger of CVS and Aetna is bad medicine, and issued the following press release: In a letter to Attorney General […]
By Jane M. Orient, M.D. With all the talk about “evidence-based medicine,” you might think that doctors were becoming much more focused on rigorous science. But like the names attached to bills in Congress—such as the Affordable Care Act, which outlaws affordable insurance, the language used in the movement to fundamentally transform America and American […]
More than 200 physicians attended a Direct Primary Care Summit sponsored by the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP), and the energy in the room was palpable, writes Albert Fisher, M.D., in the fall issue of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons. Dr. Fisher, a family physician in Oshkosh, Wis., is president of the […]