MEDICARE: Status alarms this senior

On Tuesday I went to my health care provider, and the doctor kindly told me if the feds don't get off their duffs and vote in funding for Medicare - and soon - we seniors will be standing in line at the Kootenai County hospital to get our healthcare. 

And I understand also the Medicaid situation isn't any better.  The doctor told me that since Dec. 1, the Senate has been funding Medicare on a month to month basis on current levels. They have frozen payments to physicians twice in March and April of this year, resulting in no payments to doctors or clinics since March of this year. 

Medicare funding just ended May 31. Unless the Senate votes to fund the program to the end of this year, no payments will be made to physicians. I for one don't quite understand why the fed government doesn't do something about this. 

We just witnessed a massive "PR" campaign by the president to get his health care program passed and yet nothing was done about this. It doesn't make much sense. Doctors at some point cannot continue accepting new Medicare patients at the expense of their other lower aged patients, and the ones they already have will be dropped also. By law they cannot accept funds from patients if Medicare does not pay. So guess what? Grandma won't be seeing her favorite doctor again because they will be forced to drop her as a patient. 

I know with the present state of our gigantic deficits, this is another line item on a long list for Washington to drag their feet on. So if I received bad information about this hopefully someone in the medical community can comment and set us seniors straight, or just maybe our local politicians can explain better. 

 PHIL MORGAN

Coeur d'Alene

Editor’s note: This is not the Phil Morgan who formerly directed Kootenai Humane Society.