California Hubris

By Lee DeCovnick

The height of governmental hubris and arrogance was on full display in California this morning. According to the LA Times, new health care service standards were released by the California Department of Managed Health Care after seven years of protracted negotiations with HMOs, doctors, hospitals, consumer groups and other healthcare activists.

The regulations will require that patients be treated by HMO doctors within 10 business days of requesting an appointment, and by specialists within 15.

Patients seeking urgent care that does not require prior authorization must be seen within 48 hours.

Telephone calls to doctors' offices will have to be returned within 30 minutes, and physicians or other health professionals will have to be available 24 hours a day.

But some doctors say the plan could compromise medical care by forcing them to hustle more patients through their offices, a problem that is already expected to grow as millions of uninsured Californians sign up for insurance under the national healthcare overhaul in Washington.

Regulations cannot create new doctors out of thin air.

Who is going to pay for such elemental stupidity? Angry patients who will be allowed only an eight minute consult and overworked doctors who will be burnt out by 50 patients a day work loads.

This is all pointing toward a government regulated triage system, where an SEIU or ACORN non-medical bureaucrat will decide which doctors you will see and when. I'm sure they will not check on your political donations in a government database before choosing a treatment path for you and your children.