Sun Sentinel publishes opinion piece on competitive bidding

“Quality, dependable service beneficiaries will become a thing of the past once the few suppliers awarded the bid become so bogged down that they cannot handle the sheer volume of patients, forcing them to cut back services or equipment to the very people who need them the most: the old and the sick,” the opinion piece in the Sun Sentinel states. The piece titled, “Competitive bidding not the solution to Medicare's woes” ran on July 15 and was written by Diane Sori, a Cooper City resident and wife of an independent respiratory therapist contractor.

The article points out the fact that competitive bidding will mean longer, more expensive hospital stays which causes a shift in cost from Medicare Part B to Part A. It cites the example that a day of home oxygen therapy costs less than $7, while a day in the hospital costs more than $5,500.

“Competitive bidding was an ill-conceived solution to the government's failure to reign in suppliers who abused and defrauded the system. Instead of just shutting down those suppliers, they chose to place the burden of their mismanagement on legitimate suppliers whose only goal was, and is, to serve those in medical need and to make a legitimate living by doing so.”

To read the full opinion column, visit http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/opinion/commentary/fl-competitive-bidding--forum-20100715,0,5104771.story.