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Reporter's
Notebook: MSMS House Of Delegates
By
PAUL NATINSKY
Below are some thoughts and tidbits gathered from
your colleagues at the MSMS House of Delegates last weekend.
The biggest issue to me
is the fallout to the lawsuit (on fair contracting) that
we lost to Blue Cross Blue Shield and the upcoming legislation
(on that issue) that we are going to do. We’ve made important
contacts with legislators in Lansing and we’ve identified
the people who are going to go forward for us, hopefully.
We have six or seven pieces of legislation that are going
to deal specifically with each of the issues we have with
(BCMSM).
-- Ed Jankowski, MD
Forget about pursuing an
appeal (on fair contracting with BCBSM), we’re just going
to lose again. Let’s pursue it legislatively.
-- Jankowski
One of the things you find
here at the House is that you have physicians from all
over the state of Michigan and they bring their passion
and their concern about how to make it better for patients
and you see that in every environment, from every region
and from every county. It refreshes you and energizes you.
-- Rick Smith, MD (Wayne)
One of the things you find
out is the difficulties people have in managing their practices.
Sometimes we forget in the larger, integrated systems that
there is a different set of problems. There is information
that we can share that will help physicians make their
practices better in their communities.
-- Smith
I think it’s important
for doctors to stay involved in organized medicine. I think
it’s important for us to utilize the political process
and the power of the physicians in the state of Michigan
to bring about change in the things we’d like to see happen
in the public sector to make our jobs a lot more enjoyable,
more rewarding.
-- George Shade (New BOM
member and 25-year House veteran)
I think it’s important
for us to find out what’s happening in other parts of the
state and find out if there are some common problems that
we are all dealing with.
-- Shade
Top-of-the-list issues
for me are access to health care, that’s a real problem
and it’s getting worse with the economy in the state of
Michigan. There’s an issue with the governor battling with
the Senate and the House over retaining Medicaid rates
or making cuts. Doctors and hospitals are already grossly
underpaid in that area and I think if (the cuts) were to
pass this year, you would see the health care safety net
across the state of Michigan collapse. No one can sustain
a 6.5 percent rate cut and continue to practice and serve
the Medicaid population.
-- Shade
Domestic partners in terms
of whose insurable, what kinds of benefits are going to
be offered by employers to different types of family arrangements
is going to be a big issue that needs to be covered. It
will be interesting to see where that goes.
-- Shade
The interesting side of
these House of Delegates Meetings whether you’ve been here
20 times or this is your first time, is the element of
surprise. It’s the element of surprise in seeing old friends
who you haven’t seen in a year. The other element of surprise
is that the concerns you have you thought were unique to
you are shared by others. You’re also surprised by people
bringing up things you never thought about.
-- Joseph Weiss, MD
If I had to summarize it
in 25 works or less, I think the biggest issue debated
at this meeting over the years is money. Money. How to
get paid, who’s to get paid and how much care that will
cover. It comes down to money.
-- Weiss
I think (the HOD) is an
interesting opportunity for us to get the opinions of other
physicians across the state, people that you don’t encounter
on a daily basis. When they come here, you get to hear
about issues that might not come readily to your mind.
I think this is an opportunity for all of us to get together
and hash out some of the issues in health care.
-- Sophie Womack, MD (WCMSSM
President-Elect)
When you sit with other
physicians in the reference committees, you find out that
we really do have some of the same problems, regardless
of where in the state we practice. Reimbursement issues
and cost problems are there no matter where you practice.
Access is a constant problem. Not having enough of certain
subspecialties is a problem. So I think that when you look
at the whole state you see that things are much the same
and there is not as much difference as you think.
-- Womack
One of the issues that
I think that we have not been able to address is the issue
that we are seeing of us not coming together across the
state as physicians and as institutions and working together
to make sure that we have enough physicians and residents
in this state. The residencies and graduate medical education
is a really important issue.
-- Womack
We are training folks,
but they are not staying here. So that’s one of the issues
we have to address. If we’re going to train folks, how
are we going to get them to stay here? That’s the question
that we have to answer, because if we train folks and they
practice elsewhere in the country, we’re back where we
started.
--Womack
I see the Michigan State
Medical Society as the most effective society in terms
of actually improving the lives of patients and physicians
of any society I belong to. It’s dynamic, it get’s the
job done and it’s well respected. To be a part of that
is a privilege and an honor.
-- Dan Michael, MD (House
Speaker)
I see problems practicing
in the state of Michigan, I grew up here, 52 years I’ve
lived here. I see my kids looking to leave the state. I
see other peoples’ kids looking to leave the state. I see
Michigan becoming less and less an attractive place for
bright, talented people and that’s got to be reversed.
I think it’s our Society that’s going to lead the way to
retain those folks, at least in the health care arena.
-- Michael
I think the 800-pound gorilla
on the sofa that everybody is ignoring is the tragic state
of our economy and how that impacts the practice of medicine
here in the state of Michigan. There are great resolutions,
great ideas about how we can improve the practice of medicine
in the state of Michigan, but everybody – even the authors
themselves admit – this isn’t going to happen because the
money is just not there. We need our leaders to stand up
and say, darn it, health care is an economic driver in
this state. We are not only providing care for our patients,
we are providing jobs. We need to be the ones saying this
is how the tax structure should work, the tax structure
should be something that attracts business to this state
and not something that drives it away. And I’m not hearing
a lot of that.
-- Michael
There’s a new day in Michigan
and if the policymakers in Lansing listen to the automakers,
they certainly need to the health care industry in this
state.
-- Michael
It’s an honor and a privilege
to have been elected president-elect and therefore be one
of the leaders of our society advocating for members and
patients.
-- Michael Sandler, MD
(MSMS President-Elect)
My top three issues are
legislative relations, membership issues and public health.
-- Sandler
One of the most pressing
duties in this Congress is renewing the State Children’s
Health Insurance Program (SCHIP).
-- Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.)
I want your help. I want
the help of the AMA and all other health care groups (in
working to change the Medicare payment formula). It can’t
be accomplished without your leadership.
-- Dingell
One of the great sorrows
I have is that I failed to get (the Clinton health care
reform) bills our of my committee by one vote. That fellow,
by the way, has not had a good committee assignment since.
-- Dingell
Medicine is at a tipping
point. Practicing medicine is an art but we are at a tipping
point where the complexity of certain decisions will be
beyond the human brain and an increasing number of decisions
will be made purely scientifically. Medical education will
have to reflect that.
-- David Ellis, DMC technology
futurist
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