CUT GOVERNMENT STRANGLEHOLD ON HEALTH CARE

Medical professionals at a public forum in Cape Girardeau expressed plenty of complaints concerning certain health-care matters in which government is involved. For the most part their complaints are legitimate.

The most disturbing of their concerns at the forum held by U.S. Rep. Jo Ann Emerson is the fact that many doctors no longer will accept Medicaid patients because of all the federal regulations and paperwork that go with it. As a result, those patients often end up in more-expensive hospital emergency rooms, where many of them get more extensive treatment than they really need. And the hospitals seldom get full payment.

The federal anti-dumping law prohibits hospitals from turning away those patients, so by treating them -- and few would argue they shouldn't do so -- the hospitals are saddled with abiding by all the regulations and trying to collect what money they can from Medicaid for the services rendered. Often, it isn't worth the trouble.

At the same time, the government has become so concerned with uncovering Medicare billing fraud that it is sometimes engaging in heavy-handed tactics dealing with hospitals.

The government can impose heavy fines on hospitals for even inadvertent billing errors, so many don't even bother to dispute government queries about bills.

The answer, of course, is to put more reasonable demands on doctors and hospitals who see Medicaid and Medicare patients. A doctor turning down a patient with private health insurance is unheard of, because the physician isn't burdened by such strict regulations and all the hassle that go with collecting a government claim to which the doctor is entitled.

Emerson is one of the leaders of the Rural Health Care Coalition, a group of about 145 House members who want to improve rural health care. If those members will listen to their constituents they will hear these and other concerns being expressed in every one of their districts. That is convincing enough to push for and convince Congress that major reforms are urgently needed.