President’s Model for Reform?

President’s Model for Reform?

JANUARY 4, 2010

The Mayo Clinic was praised by President Obama for providing "outstanding care"

"There are some places, like the Mayo Clinic, many of you have heard of, provides outstanding care, some of the best in the world.  People fly in from everywhere to go to Mayo Clinic to get treated.  Turns out Mayo provides care much more cheaply than a lot of other health systems, even though it's better care." (Remarks by the President, 7/1/2009)

But government-run health care is forcing the Mayo Clinic to deny care to thousands of seniors.
 
"The Mayo Clinic...will stop accepting Medicare patients as of tomorrow at one of its primary-care clinics in Arizona, saying the U.S. government pays too little...The Mayo organization had 3,700 staff physicians and scientists and treated 526,000 patients in 2008. It lost $840 million last year on Medicare, the government's health program for the disabled and those 65 and older, Mayo spokeswoman Lynn Closway said."

"Mayo's hospital and four clinics in Arizona, including the Glendale facility, lost $120 million on Medicare patients last year... the program's payments cover about 50 percent of the cost of treating elderly primary-care patients at the Glendale clinic, he said." (Bloomberg, "Mayo Clinic in Arizona to Stop Treating Some Medicare Patients," 12/31/2009)

As health care experts in the Obama Administration have reported, the Democrats' latest plan for a government takeover of health care will only make the problem worse.