Congress gets instant walk-in treatment by expert Navy primary care doctors for $503 per year in a fully staffed and equipped clinic in the Capitol.
Services offered by the Office of the Attending Physician include physicals and routine examinations, on-site X-rays and lab work, physical therapy and referrals to medical specialists from military hospitals and private medical practices. According to congressional budget records, the office is staffed by at least four Navy doctors as well as at least a dozen medical and X-ray technicians, nurses and a pharmacist.
Sources said when specialists are needed, they are brought to the Capitol, often at no charge to members of Congress.
Congress sees no urgency in health care reform because all of their needs are met. Instantly. By some of the best trained primary care physicians on the planet. When a congressman gets heartburn after overeating at a dinner with an insurance lobbyist, no problem, he just walks into the clinic.
"A member walked in and was generally walked right back into a physician's office. They get good care. They are not rushed. They are examined thoroughly," said Eduardo Balbona, an internist in Jacksonville, Fla., who worked as a staff physician in the OAP from 1993 to 1995.
My wife just discovered that she could no longer afford to provide IUDs to Medicaid patients because Medicaid reimbursements have been slashed to below her costs, but Congress sees no need for reform. Patients will be forced to go to the health department which is already unable to meet the demand because my wife cannot afford to lose money. More patients will have unintended pregnancies and expensive gynecologic surgery because doctors won't prescribe and emplace IUDs at a loss.
General Medicaid reimbursement rates were cut without notice, to levels so low that Medicaid patients will have to go to emergency rooms to find a doctor who will treat them. But Congress doesn't notice because they get instant service with no copays or deductibles..
Members of Congress do not pay for the individual services they receive at the OAP, nor do they submit claims through their federal employee health insurance policies. Instead, members pay a flat, annual fee of $503 for all the care they receive. The rest of the cost of their care, sources said, is subsidized by taxpayers.
Last year, Congress appropriated more than $3 million to reimburse the Navy for staff salaries at the office. Next year's budget allocates $3.8 million for the office, including more than half a million dollars to upgrade the Office's radiology suite. Sources said additional money to operate the office is included in the Navy's annual budget.
In 2008, 240 members paid the annual fee, though some sources say congressmen who didn't pay the fee were rarely prevented from using OAP services.
Congress believes in socialized medicine - for themselves. They get some of the best socialized medicine on the planet. They just don't want you to get it. They don't even want you to see the Ferrari level of care they are getting. ABC news was forbidden to go inside the facilities for "security reasons".
Their job security.
If the American people knew what these crooks were up to they would get out the pitchforks.
Hat tip to Digby.