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Contact: Katie Orrico
202 446-2024
Neurosurgeons Oppose Limiting Patient Access and
Government Interference in Medical
Care
House Health Care Reform Bill Jeopardizes Future of American Medicine
WASHINGTON, DC – The American Association of Neurological Surgeons
(AANS) and Congress of Neurological Surgeons (CNS) announced their opposition to
H.R. 3200, the “America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009,” currently under
consideration by the House of Representatives.
“America’s neurosurgeons strongly support improving our nation’s healthcare system
by ensuring insurance coverage for all our citizens. Unfortunately, as it is currently
constructed, this bill goes far beyond what is necessary to fix what is broken with
our healthcare system,” stated Troy M. Tippett, MD, President of the AANS. “Rather
than pursuing a carefully targeted set of reforms, the House bill could amount to
a complete government takeover of healthcare.”
P. David Adelson, MD, President of the CNS echoed these sentiments, stating, “Clearly,
we want to ensure that every patient has insurance and timely access to quality
healthcare provided by the doctor of his or her choice. However, this legislation
will ultimately limit patient choice, will put the government between the doctor
and the patient, interfering with patient care decisions, and because of its tremendous
cost – immediately and in the future – will be a burden to all Americans.”
Specifically, the AANS and CNS have concerns about the following key elements of
the legislation:
- Ultimately, the public health insurance option will lead to a single-payer, government
run healthcare system;
- Due to its high price-tag, the health system envisioned is unsustainable;
- Under the public health insurance option, the government is empowered to implement
rules that would restrict patients’ choice of physician and limit timely access
to quality specialty care;
- The bill fails to recognize the looming workforce shortages in surgery by requiring
that all unused medical residency training slots be allocated to primary care and
placing the emphasis on national workforce policy on primary care, to the exclusion
of surgical and other specialty care;
- The bill inappropriately expands the government’s involvement in determining the
quality of medical care and residency training programs;
- The bill permits the government to arbitrarily reduce reimbursement for valuable,
life-saving specialty care for elderly patients, threatening treatment options;
- Patient-centered healthcare is threatened by provisions related to comparative
effectiveness research, changes to office-based imaging and curtailing the development
of physician-owned specialty hospitals; and
- The bill potentially stifles medical innovation and valuable continuing medical
education programs.
In addition, the House bill fails to include an essential element – medical liability
reform. “Numerous studies have demonstrated that effective federal medical liability
reforms will significantly lower healthcare costs by reducing defensive medicine
and eliminating frivolous lawsuits from the system,” Dr. Tippett noted. “Congress
cannot call this health care reform without addressing this problem.”
The AANS and CNS look forward to working with Congress to make changes in the legislation
to ensure that we enact meaningful health system reform, without dismantling the
current system, which works well for most Americans.
The American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS), founded in 1931, and
the Congress of Neurological Surgeons (CNS), founded in 1951, are the two largest
scientific and educational associations for neurosurgical professionals in the world.
These groups represent approximately 7,600 neurosurgeons worldwide. Neurological
surgery is the medical specialty concerned with the prevention, diagnosis, treatment
and rehabilitation of disorders that affect the entire nervous system, including
the spinal column, spinal cord, brain and peripheral nerves.