Medicare’s Victims: How the U.S. Government’s Largest Health Care Program Harms Patients and Impairs Physicians

In Medicare’s Victims, you’ll read the intimate stories of patients and physicians who have struggled with Medicare, and then you’ll learn how the particular Medicare policy has caused their plight. The patients who are victims of Medicare are often the sickest of the sick, whether it is the disabled who are on Medicare’s two-year waiting period; seniors who fell into Part D’s donut hole; or patients who are harmed because they receive too much treatment or not enough. The physicians who are victims are ones who struggle to provide the best care for their patients while Medicare’s reimbursement system, in effect, punishes them for it. They all tend to have one thing in common: lack of political power. For example, people who are seriously ill are relatively few in number. As such, they do not have the numbers necessary to impact elections. Further, people who are ill are generally not engaging in the networking, meetings and other activities necessary to form effective political organizations. Thus, Congress seldom feels the pressure to change the policies that harm these people. In the end, you’ll learn how we can reform Medicare so that patients and physicians are put in control of their own medical decisions and, thus, will be much less likely to be victimized.