State Society Pledges to Keep Fighting for Mcare
The Pennsylvania Medical Society continues to work “tirelessly and aggressively” for Mcare relief, according to outgoing President Peter S. Lund, MD.
“We have worked so hard to make Pennsylvania a good place to practice medicine and to get medical care. We can’t let that slip away,” Dr. Lund said in his “State of the State” speech at the Society’s House of Delegates meeting Oct. 25, 2008, in Hershey.
Dr. Lund added that retention and recruitment of young physicians will be more difficult without Mcare abatement, a “price our patients will pay.”
The State Society’s Board of Trustees has asked the state Insurance Commissioner to use the current Mcare Fund surplus to reduce physicians’ 2009 Mcare assessments, which are set at 19 percent. The surplus exists because the 2008 assessment collected more revenue than was needed to pay the Fund’s claims and expenses this year.
So far, Mcare abatement has not extended for 2008 because Gov. Ed Rendell and Senate Republicans could not come to an agreement on the issue, which the governor had tied to expansion of health insurance coverage for the uninsured.
The Medical Society worked hard for Mcare relief but was caught in this political impasse because, Dr. Lund said, “The business of politics doesn’t follow the logic of medicine.”
“It was not as much about the details of a three-year versus a five-year deal; it was more about not being the first one to blink,” he added.
Last Updated: 10/30/2008