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Read the Bill?

By Greg Scandlen on 8.17.09 @ 8:10AM

Even if you read the bill you won’t understand it. It is written exactly to hide what it is they are doing.

There is one provision that gives the Secretary the power to reduce payment to any cancer treatment center that has above average charges. That is a pretty neat trick by itself, since any “average” requires things that are higher than average and lower than average. If you eliminate everything that is above average, what happens to the average?

But, right after this provision are three paragraphs exempting three facilities from the provision. Here is one of them --

“A hospital that was recognized as a comprehensive cancer center or clinical cancer research center by the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health as of April 20, 1983, that is located in a State which, as of December 19, 1989, was not operating a demonstration project under section 1814(b), that applied and was denied, on or before December 31, 1990, for classification as a hospital involved extensively in treatment for or research on cancer under this clause (as in effect on the day before the date of the enactment of this subclause), that as of the date of the enactment of this subclause, is licensed for less than 50 acute care beds, and that demonstrates for the 4-year period ending on December 31, 1996, that at least 50 percent of its total discharges have a principal finding of neoplastic disease, as defined in subparagraph (E).”

I doubt there is anyone in America who can identify what hospital that is -- except the Congressman who wrote it and the person who bribed him to insert it.

This is one paragraph of a 1,000 page bill that is chock full of similar shenanigans.

View all comments (5) | Leave a comment

Aaron| 8.17.09 @ 8:35AM

Identify which congressman who wrote it and bingo you will find out exactly which district that hospital resides. Again I'll say it, its time for doctors (MD types) to run for congress. If we as a collective hate lawyers so much why do we keep electing them?

Pecos Pete| 8.17.09 @ 10:49AM

Hey Mr. Scandlen, do me a favor and provide the Section reference, twill save me time looking it up before I send the paragraph to my congress critter as an example of his perfect health care bill.

Rob | 8.17.09 @ 12:57PM

Here's a Web site listing 65 Cancer Centers that participate in the National Cancer Institute's Cancer Centers Program: http://cancercenters.cancer.gov/cancer_centers/cancer-centers-list.html. My hunch is that the staff of the National Cancer Institute could either identify the cancer center or at least identify which of the 65 cancer centers on the list do NOT meet one or more of the criteria. Their phone number and email addressses are posted online. Perhaps all the facilities that meet the three sets of criteria for exemption could be identified. We don't know whether they apply to only three facilities, or a larger number without this information. Either way, Congress should not vote without having this information available via the press.

ThatJoeGuy| 8.17.09 @ 7:48PM

Maybe I have the wrong bill but I've searched the text (PDF) of two different copies of the bill I have and I can't find this paragraph anywhere.

Greg Scandlen| 8.18.09 @ 10:09AM

Hey, guys,

I don't know what happened here but the posting was changed and the actual paragraph was eliminated.

The Section number is Section 1145 of H.R. 3200, “TREATMENT OF CERTAIN CANCER HOSPITALS." and the paragraph reads:

“A hospital that was recognized as a comprehensive cancer center or clinical cancer research center by the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health as of April 20, 1983, that is located in a State which, as of December 19, 1989, was not operating a demonstration project under section 1814(b), that applied and was denied, on or before December 31, 1990, for classification as a hospital involved extensively in treatment for or research on cancer under this clause (as in effect on the day before the date of the enactment of this subclause), that as of the date of the enactment of this subclause, is licensed for less than 50 acute care beds, and that demonstrates for the 4-year period ending on December 31, 1996, that at least 50 percent of its total discharges have a principal finding of neoplastic disease, as defined in subparagraph (E).”