Proposed Medicare cuts will make it harder for doctors to provide necessary health care
President Joe Biden delivered remarks about lowering health care costs and strengthening Social Security and Medicare in the Rose Garden at the White House on Sept. 27.
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I appreciate what a difficult job doctors have, especially in the age of COVID-19, economic uncertainty and rising inflation. But practicing medicine will be even more difficult if Medicare enacts its proposed cut of some 4% to physician services. These cuts come on top of years of previous cumulative cuts, making it harder to provide care.
Now, when many patients who avoided regular health screenings due to COVID-19 are returning to getting care, is the wrong time for cuts. With lower reimbursement for Medicare services, practices will be under pressure to cut back on the number of Medicare patients they serve, limit services or reduce investment in new innovative technologies. Health screening helps save lives, but if access is cut and diagnoses are delayed, more Americans will face unnecessary suffering.
Medicare must mitigate these cuts for doctors and work with Congress on policies that will ensure stability for physicians.
Daniel Polley, Edgewater Glen
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An idea to curb crime on CTA
Lately, few weeks pass without complaints about the hazards of criminality faced by Chicago Transit Authority riders. Despite assurances from city and CTA officials that crime suppression is in effect, some riders are less than convinced. It’s enough to make some commuters channel the red beret-wearing Guardian Angels that volunteered to patrol New York City’s subways to protect the public years ago.
Movie buffs may even recall the 1970s and ‘80s vigilante movies starring Charles Bronson in the role of architect Paul Kersey, looking to avenge his wife’s murder by petty thugs by riding the subways at night as bait. His identity unknown, he blew away assailants left and right. Assaults on public conveyances quickly dropped to near zero. Overnight he became a phantom folk hero. In real life, wishful thinking, of course.
Moral, legal and political considerations aside, given the prevalence of unease among Chicago riders, it sounds as though they might nevertheless welcome a local version of Paul Kersey to accomplish what seems not to be working otherwise: playing by the rules of due process. It’s all extralegal fantasy of course, straight out of Hollywood, in a script where nothing goes wrong. But nothing else seems to be working well enough to end rider jitters on our CTA.
It seems time to implement acceptable outside-the-box methods to restore public faith and maintain ridership. One possibility: Paid civilians with bodycams and police frequency radios riding CTA in numbers sufficient to discourage in-transit hooliganism — and able to “call in the cavalry” as needed.
Other ideas are welcome.
Ted Z. Manuel, Hyde Park