oops? this is because (laughter) careful, too. this is because the government reimburses everybody $3,000 for the fancy power chair. yes. john: but $1,000 for this thing. and federal reports have shown there are 300, 400% profit being made on the power wheelchairs and peechl want an amigo you complaint to the government. they ve said what. we ve sent letters and tried to contact them and they don t see a need for the change. to ask them to increase reimbursement for products like an amigo doesn t make sense to them. when you re looking at the big picture and to increase the reimbursement for this, it could save millions and millions of dollars for medicare. and obamacare will increase this kind of stuff because obamacare means somebody else is paying for more stuff and i would think more people are going be to buy the expensive stuff if it s free? i think if you gave people i know that if you gave
surgeries were kind of operational as far as the timing and you brought this up in that big white house meeting with president obama. well, i talked to the president about having people have skin in the the game. that if we had catastrophic coverage for people so they don t lose their house, but sprain their ankle or a sore throat, people would do much better as shopper focused on their own money, when it s their money instead of medicare money or insurance money and nobody spends that money as wisely as they do their own. john: president obama, was he waking up to this, polite to you in the meeting. he s always polite. but i don t think he fundamentally understands how heb works in america from the standpoint, people are concerned. they want the care they need from the doctor they want at a price they can afford and this health care law, i think, is going to make it worse. well, that s bad news, but a market works better for everything else and if we can just get people to pay
access, you ll see industrialization of medicine in the united states barry doctors instead of delivering direct patient care, they ll manage nurses and providers and patients will have a hard time getting access to doctors. john: what would you do, you re king, fix it. i think that the doctors prices are fixed, they say this is what you go and determine doctor rates. this is the only service i know of where there s no difference in the level of compensation commensurate with talent, skills, reputation, all doctors earn the same under medicare and they basically don t have to compete. so on some level a lot of physicians like the system and private carriers were competing for doctor services and see a gradation for service what kind of service they were and what they were delivering. john: they like this and paid the same rate. right, they like it until there s a threat that the
a medicare specialist at reason magazine. we re going broke, today people my age getting old, living longer, we re toast, what are we going to do? well, i can tell you what congress is going to do, which at least in the short-term is keep spending your money. keep spending taxpayer money. they re not going to cut the doctor payments. they re not going to cut the doctor payments, we go through this every year, sometimes several times a year. what congress does, wait until the last minute and oh, no, what are we going to do. take a last minute vote and then vote to continue paying doctors at the rates that we ve been paying doctors and don t let them take the cut. i agree with reality. only way to bring european style health care to the united states, what doctors are making. if you look at them relative nations, doctors here just earn more. so people would say, so what? doctors make too much money, europeans seem happy with their health care system. i think it s going to hurt
the gym every day of the week, perfectly fit i believe is discriminated against in terms of what they re going to have to pay. john: and this is one of the useful parts of insurance companies, they re forbidden now to exercise under obamacare, but isn t part of the problem of obamacare in all of this discussion, they re talking about coverage, rather than care, insurance companies mean somebody else pays the bill. and then, nobody cares what things cost. your doctor, your patients ever ask? well, very few, because if they are he covered under medicare and under their insurance, they re less concerned than when they re spending their own money. as a surgeon i had did eight operations on people who met their deductibles for the year and needed the operation before the end of the year and of course new year s eve they got their free operation. if they waited until after january 1st, more money out of their own pocket. we i should make it clear to the office he s he an orthopedic s