Your excellence counts for nothing as they line their own pockets:
“Pay for performance? Fuggeddaboutit! Congress keeps its automatic pay increase, and taxes, inflation, deficits, and the national debt all rise. Down Independence Avenue, Health and Human Services (HHS) bureaucrats get automatic pay raises and universal “outstanding” performance ratings.
(Footnote: take a laptop with you into HHS headquarters and its serial number is logged in and out by an armed guard. Apparently, so many employees are stealing government-owned laptops that “something” had to be done. But hey — they aren’t just stealing from the taxpayers, the elderly, and their doctors any more! Now, where was I …)
Meanwhile, my hometown paper reports that cardiologists have reduced morbidity of heart disease by thirty percent in the past ten years. Their reward? HHS gives them a pay cut. But wait, there’s more. In addition, HHS plans to cut its reimbursement rate by an arbitrary 21% for all physicians who accept Medicare patients. From all appearances, Nancy Pelosi thinks that’s fine.”