Might as well send you guys the entire email. I'm not a "troll" - I'm a real attending anesthesiologist just out of residency and alerting all you pre-meds what you are getting yourself into.
IT WILL PASS. WE WILL BE MAKING MUCH LESS MONEY THAN YOU CAN BELIEVE.
Don't be an idiot and just blow off what I say and/or turn a blind eye to what is really going on in Congress. You THINK you understand the risk, but you haven't had to take a 30-hr call - over and over - yet! Ha!
Medicine is still an honorable profession though. I enjoy the challenge, taking good care of my patients, and I have 0 school loans. But not having any school loans was a big part of my decision process in going into medicine.
GOOD LUCK!
Here's the entire email that my friend forwarded me:
--------------------------
June 15, 2009
In June???
Today President Obama will deliver a major speech at the American Medical Association's annual meeting in Chicago. The President will use this opportunity to push for a government sponsored health plan to compete with private insurance. He called for a "public option" last week in his open letter to top Senate Democrats and again in remarks given in a high school gymnasium in Green Bay, Wisconsin, but intended for the American public.
The AMA opposes any public plan that requires physicians to participate, that expands the Medicare program or that pays Medicare rates, as does the American Society of Anesthesiologists. The AMA has just indicated that it is open to considering alternatives such as a "federally-chartered co-op health plan or a level playing field option for all plans." The outlines of an insurance cooperative that would be owned and operated for its members, but not government-run, will probably appear in the draft healthcare reform bill expected to be released by the Senate Finance Committee within the next several days.
President Obama has said from the beginning that he wants bipartisan support for a healthcare reform bill. That is much more likely to happen if the bill provides for a co-op than for a government-run plan, as the AMA has urged.
Today's speech should be very interesting, and the negotiations over the form of the future public plan even more so. Add to the mix the President's proposal to reduce Medicare/Medicaid spending by an additional $313 billion over the next decade, announced in his weekly radio and internet address on June 13. It is definitely the season for anesthesiologists, nurse anesthetists, anesthesiologists assistants, their practice administrators and their friends to involve themselves in shaping healthcare reform.
Most readers have heard and read that anesthesiology faces a major risk that is unique to this specialty: the possibility that a public option will pay Medicare rates, or anything close to Medicare's current national average anesthesia conversion factor of $20.92. In that scenario, a shift of just 500 cases from private insurance to the public plan or co-op using the Medicare rate could mean hundreds of thousands of dollars lost. For example:
500 commercially-insured cases x 12 units (average) = 6,000 units
Average 2009 commercial conversion factor (hypothetical) = $65
Gross revenues = $390,000
______________
Average 2010 public plan conversion factor (if unchanged from 2009): $20.92
Gross revenues = $125,520
______________
Net loss = ($264,480)
______________
And, if the SGR-driven decrease of 21% in the conversion factor is not fixed, the public plan could be paying as little as $16.53, for a net loss of nearly $300,000 on those 500 hypothetical cases.
If you think that we're hitting this topic too hard and would like us to address more practice issues, please send us topic suggestions or questions. In the meantime, bear with us as we make another appeal for personal action. First, we encourage you to continue your telephone calls and letters to your legislators asking them to oppose both Medicare-based payment rates and to repeal the SGR.
There is a new opportunity for ASA members to lend their voices to the cause. We would like to urge you to participate in ASA's Grassroots Network. <http://abc.createsend.com/t/r/l/iruhjr/jjjijdlr/r> Fourteen hundred individuals have already signed up for the Grassroots Network since its launch at the May 2009 Legislative Conference. As explained on ASA's website, "The ASA Grassroots Network educates and activates members when the collective voices of anesthesiologists are needed to influence legislation, regulation or other actions that impact the specialty."
Grassroots Network volunteers agree to respond to "Action Alerts" from ASA and to talk and write to their legislators and colleagues about the specialty's issues. Even more valuable are the Grassroots Network anesthesiologists who develop and cultivate personal relationships with their legislators and who commit to respond to requests from ASA to take specific action, on short notice, on significant legislative issues - the "Key Contacts".
ASA has answered the question, "HOW DO YOU BECOME A KEY CONTACT?" in its Washington Advocacy Guide <http://abc.createsend.com/t/r/l/iruhjr/jjjijdlr/y> , recently published by the Committee on Governmental Affairs. The Guide states:
Developing a relationship with your Member of Congress
is key. Some relationships are personal and develop naturally
through friends, family or a common thread such as
membership in the same civic or alumni organization or
even having children that attend school together. Other
Key Contact relationships are developed through years
of meeting and working with the Member of Congress on
various issues.
Developing a Key Contact relationship from scratch takes
time, effort and patience. An ideal way to meet an elected
official is to be introduced through a common friend,
such as another ASA member that already has an established
relationship.
The Guide describes a number of other ways to grow your relationship you're your Senators or Members of Congress and invites interested ASA members to identify themselves at
http://www.asahq.org/Washington/grassroots.htm <http://abc.createsend.com/t/r/l/iruhjr/jjjijdlr/j> .
ASA members who are willing to become Grassroots Network volunteers or, better yet, Key Contacts can leverage the Society's ability to advance the specialty's interests in Washington exponentially if enough of you join. Imagine if every anesthesiology group had at least one member who was willing to spread the message within the group and on the Hill.
Anesthesia practice administrators, we hope that you are reading this Announcement too. A number of you have told us that you're ready to make it as easy as necessary for your anesthesiologists to join in ASA's efforts. You may well be the vital advocates who inspire your doctors to become Key Contacts for your individual groups.
ABC is very grateful to ASA. The representation ASA provides is going to determine the survival of the specialty. We would like to repay the debt by persuading as many of our readers as possible to become activists and advocates.
As always, we are eager to receive suggestions for practice management (or legislative!) topics on which our clients and other readers would like us to publish information.
Sincerely,
xxxxxxxxxx
President and CEO
If you have any questions or would like additional information please call 517-xxx-xxxx x 4113
or send an email to xxxx
