ST. PAUL, Minn. — Citizens’ Council for Health Freedom president and co-founder, Twila Brase, provides the following statement on President Biden’s latest 2,709-page Medicare rule:
“The changes to physician payments in the recently released Medicare rule will lead to reduced medical care for Medicare patients. The rule cuts payment rates for physicians but then pays for twice-a-year collection of a vast array of non-clinical Social Determinants of Health (SDOH) data with associated referrals to community and social services. The rule gives doctors fewer dollars for direct patient care and more reasons to leave Medicare and the practice of medicine behind.
“The Biden administration’s push to use the exam room as a data collection center is unethical, exploitive, and a violation of privacy rights. It’s also a diversion of valuable time and money away from patient care.
“The administration is changing the emphasis of Medicare from medical care to identifying and meeting non-medical social needs. This diversion of Medicare dollars to social services will be detrimental to the millions of Americans depending on Medicare to meet their medical needs.
“The Medicare Trust Fund is expected to be depleted in 2031. According to the Medicare trustees report, only 89% of medical bills will be paid, increasing the pressure to ration care to senior citizens. By 2035, more than 80 million people will be in Medicare and dependent on it for their medical care.
“Medicare patients want these scarce dollars to be used for medical care, not extraction and reporting of extensive social data to the government. And they certainly don’t want their personal data to be used to restrict their care or to divert medical care dollars into a plethora of social services.”
