Well, the Democrats finally paid off the quislings at the AMA, and the American people will (as usual) be left to pay the tab. As I wrote in this AmSpec piece last year, the AMA’s support of Obamacare was all about the Benjamins. The goal was a reprieve from big cuts in Medicare payments to doctors, and that’s what they got on Monday:
Doctors slated to have their Medicare reimbursements cut 21 percent on April 1 got a reprieve from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which is delaying lowered payments until after Congress reconvenes.
The bait & switch involves the fact that the Dems forced the CBO to score Obamacare without considering this inevitable rescission of the Medicare cuts to physicians. This caused the CBO estimate to be more than $200 billion low, and thus made it possible for the Dems to make the risible claim that “reform” would reduce the deficit.
Having thus tricked the voters into believing that the one virtue of this horrible bill was its “cost control” feature (the bait), and passed it on that basis, there is no further need to maintain the fiction that Obamacare will reduce the deficit. So, another hive of bureaucrats (CMS) issued a reprieve (the switch) that will cost the taxpayers $200 billion.
The irony, of course, is that the Dems will eventually betray the AMA just as they have betrayed the taxpayers. They have no more intention of honoring this deal over the long term than they had of honoring their “transparency” pledge. In the end, everyone gets the shaft.
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