The Heritage Foundation’s Rob Bluey wrote an article for the Washington Examiner about the health care reform law’s effect on physician-owned hospitals. An excerpt:
“Physicians at McBride Orthopedic Hospital had ambitious plans for their Oklahoma City hospital before Obamacare. Two new operating rooms and a four-bed intensive-care unit were part of a multimillion-dollar expansion project that promised to bring competition and more health care choices to the community.
“But once President Obama’s signature was dry on the 2,409-page Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, so, too, was the McBride project. The recently enacted law imposed a series of new federal regulations on physician-owned hospitals, including an immediate ban on expansion.
…
“Within days of enactment of the new law, developers across the country nixed plans for 24 new physician-owned hospitals under construction. It will be a struggle for an additional 47 new such hospitals under construction to meet an Obamacare-imposed deadline of Dec. 31 to be finished and have their Medicare certification.”
As we’ve mentioned on the blog, the health care reform law will limit the number of physician-owned hospitals. Bluey interviewed an expert who made an apt analogy. The government’s limitation on physician-owned hospital is just as ridiculous as the government limiting car manufacturers’ sales of existing cars and prohibiting them from making new cars.
“What other industry would put up with this,” McBride Chief Executive Mark Galliart said. “If we were spending money recklessly and harming people, that’s one thing. But physician-owned hospitals are doing it better and more efficiently.”
Even before the health care reform law, physician-owned hospitals had their critics. Some say they’re concerned that doctors may base medical decisions on how much money they’ll make and create conflicts of interest that could put patients in danger.
Read the full article at the Washington Examiner.
