ObamaCare and the War on Hospitals

[Geee]

Front Page Magazine:

Regardless of what happens in the November election, the CEO of the American Hospital Association (AHA), Richard Umbdenstock, said, Sept. 16, “Many aspects of health care will remain[.]”

But many hospitals won’t.

What he didn’t mention was the burning dispute in the hospital community that could wipe out 100,000 jobs and see the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in court for “retroactive regulation and restrictions for arbitrary and irrational reasons,” as charged in a lawsuit by the Physician Hospitals of America (PHA). That’s the association of doctor-owned hospitals, not the AHA hospitals, which Umbdenstock represents.

The fuse to the fight was ignited when the Democrats this spring were trying desperately to hold down the cost of the pending health-care legislation. “ObamaCare architect Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) proposed to help pay for ObamaCare’s massive expansion of entitlements,” the Washington Times reported Aug. 27, “by imposing a 20 percent cut in Medicare fees for hospital services[.]”

The American Hospital Association and Federation of American Hospitals balked at such an arbitrary cost cut. So, the Senate Democrats threw a bone to the big hospital groups to hush their opposition. The “bone” was an onerous restriction on the 265 physician-owned hospitals. The Democrats slipped in a provision that blocks doctors from building or expanding their hospitals. The provision (Section 6001) prevents a new physician-owned hospital from receiving Medicare certification after the end of this year if its doctors refer patients to that hospital.

[Stella]

It is beginning to sound like an awful lot of Obamacare was put in because of lobbyists all giving things to the Democrats in exchange for voting the way they wanted. Obama hates the idea of an private business. I'm not sure how this will impact the average citizen but judging by everything else in that bill, it won't be good.