1989 LAW REDUCED CONFLICT OF INTEREST FOR DOCTORS
Rep. Pete Stark made his money in banking, but his three decades in Congress have been highlighted by work in health care legislation. According to a piece at Time.com, the Stark Law, part of the liberal congressman’s legacy in lawmaking is getting renewed attention on Capitol Hill as Congress looks for ways to pay for universal health care.
The Stark Law, actually three pieces of legislation, made the practice of doctors referring patients to institutions of which they had a financial interest illegal. Critics of the practice say doctors have a interest in recommending sometimes costly procedures for their own financial benefit. Many doctors disagree saying the law is an intrusion by the government into the care of patients.
Within the 850-page draft of Congress’ health care reform bill, according to the story, is a passage that would close the last remaining loophole in the Stark Law and save tax dollars–the ability of doctor-owned specialty hospitals to benefit from their own referrals.
The House bill would address this issue by closing a loophole that has allowed doctors to send patients to hospitals they had a stake in, so long as that hospital served a rural population, or the stake was in a “whole hospital,” not just a wing or department; the Congressional Budget Office predicts closing this loophole would mean fewer overall procedures, saving $1 billion in Medicare costs over ten years.
Washington Monthly also describes how President Obama’s plan to computerize health records may not save taxpayer dollars, but waste them. The article details the trouble with proprietary software versus the use of open-share applications. Stark introduced a bill last year that would have created a low-cost IT system whose code is open for all to tweak and presumably improve upon. It was defeated, the article believes, by lobbyist of deep-pocketed software companies.
ebcitizen.com 