Fiery labor leader Barry Liebowitz, M.D., is attracting scores of angry private doctors to his union who are “fed up” over budget cuts.
Budget Crisis Prompts Docs’ Exodus
By Don Flynn
WASHINGTON--America’s elderly, poor and minorities--who are already suffering from a critical shortage of doctors and other providers--are now facing a more intensified exodus of physicians from Medicare and Medicaid as the result of the nation’s budget crisis.
“Doctors are fed up over the budget cuts that have already taken place,” declared an angry Barry Liebowitz, M.D., president of the Doctors Council, a national union of doctors now attracting hundreds of new members who hope to be rescued from the fiscal crisis now adversely affecting physicians and other providers. The entry by attending doctors represents an important shift since many of them have been in the past opposed to trade unionism.
While the doctors and providers are concerned about the Big Four entitlements, such as Social Security, Defense, Medicare and Medicaid, they single out the latter entitlement because of what they believe will “devastate” underserved populations.
“About 70 percent of doctors will stop seeing Medicaid patients,” Liebowitz told The Spiritual Herald. “A minimum of 50 percent of doctors will stop seeing Medicare patients. Basically, doctors lose money on every one of those individuals due to the costs based on the federal reimbursement and state reimbursement.
“What is most disturbing is the loss of Medicare and Medicaid, and it’s not only felt by the indigent. The middle class is feeli...Read More
