Could Looming GME Cuts Benefit Pathology?

[pathstudent]

As most of you know medicare will likely markedly reduce funding for residency positions due to the budget crisis. If it happens it will force programs to figure out alternate sources of funding residents or shuttering doors or finding residents that will work for nothing or work for much less.

Whether or not the federal govt should be in the busniness of training doctors should be left up to the voters via elected offcials to decide. They don't train MBAs or Lawyers so why should the 99% via the government massively subsidize the training of physicians who are going to go on and earn buko bucks and be part of the 1%? Let the rich doctors pay for their own training.

But if the cuts do go through hopefully the governement will focus on maintaining primary care positions and slashing cost increasing specialists like orthos, cards, paths, rads, etc...

Massively defunding specialists could do a lot to help the field.

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[pathstudent]

Well the super committee failed and now 1.2 trillion in cuts are automatically triggered for 2013. I am pretty sure cms cuts are included in that.

 

[2121115]

Well the super committee failed and now 1.2 trillion in cuts are automatically triggered for 2013. I am pretty sure cms cuts are included in that.

It failed because they all know those cuts won't happen. The law will be modified. There is always wiggle room. This was a complete political posturing stunt staged by both of our pathetic parties to say "Look those other guys caused all these cuts by not agreeing with us."

 

[yaah]

"For 2013" is the key point. That's after the next election. In politics, cuts don't actually happen until the date they happen. Lots of things are done, unfortunately, to simply make the "baseline" of spending look better in the future, even though this actual baseline is unlikely to really occur.

The SGR is a good example - Congress has to fix the SGR every few months to years to prevent draconian cuts in reimbursement. Why don't they fix it permanently? Because that would "cost" future dollars that are already at a certain baseline, which is based on the SGR. So even though it is money that has not been spent, it can still be scored and counted towards future deficits and spending. A lot of people don't understand this, which is probably why politicians are so successful in keeping their jobs.

 

[pathstudent]

"For 2013" is the key point. That's after the next election. In politics, cuts don't actually happen until the date they happen. Lots of things are done, unfortunately, to simply make the "baseline" of spending look better in the future, even though this actual baseline is unlikely to really occur.

The SGR is a good example - Congress has to fix the SGR every few months to years to prevent draconian cuts in reimbursement. Why don't they fix it permanently? Because that would "cost" future dollars that are already at a certain baseline, which is based on the SGR. So even though it is money that has not been spent, it can still be scored and counted towards future deficits and spending. A lot of people don't understand this, which is probably why politicians are so successful in keeping their jobs.

Right, but I think this time it is a little bit different. And it isn't just for healthcare. Big time cuts are coming for defense, education, healthcare etc... Super committee turned out not to be so super after all.

 

[yaah]

Right, but I think this time it is a little bit different. And it isn't just for healthcare. Big time cuts are coming for defense, education, healthcare etc... Super committee turned out not to be so super after all.

Big cuts are coming but unlikely to that level.