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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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