Welcome to MBM web site and we wish you a happy and prosperous 2011. I wonder what will happen to the health care industry this year?
At 12 o’clock today (Jan 5, 2010) the 112th Congress will be “called to order.” Surely their agenda will include reductions in government spending. In my opinion, that should be their whole agenda.
In the early 1990s when our company was small and struggling, we operated by borrowing money. Today, we have a balanced budget, we don’t borrow money and we are not struggling. The US government began deficit spending in 19xx and continues to borrow and continue to struggle at a more desperate rate. The recent extreme deficit spending by the 111th Congress seems to have skewed our national priorities of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Meanwhile, the lame-duck Congress did pass a one-year-Medicare pay-fix that was signed by President Obama before January 1, 2010. This legislation averted the looming 24% pay cut for physicians and non-physician providers. It represents “breathing time,” and a time for the new Congress to begin a rational and cost effective approach to “control” health care spending.