Cruel and vindictive.
That describes the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services decision to defy a court order and double the $1.7 million cut in Medicare reimbursements for our Olympic Medical Center walk-in clinic in Sequim.
CMS is a federal agency under President Donald Trump’s command.
If this flagrant defiance of a decision by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia stands, it will mean a loss of about $94 million to OMC in the coming decade.
The Court blocked CMS’ first cut from $118 per patient visit to $47 per visit.
I pay my vet more than that to treat my cat.
And now CMS has doubled the cut.
This drastic reduction could force closure of rural satellite clinics at 52 medical centers across the nation.
Rural America is suffering as hospitals and clinics close, forcing seniors like me to travel far to cities with emergency services when we have a heart attack or stroke.
I am the acting chair of Voices for Health and Healing.
We support the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe’s Healing Campus to treat victims of the opioid epidemic.
We also support HR-2552, a bipartisan bill in the U.S. Congresss introduced by Rep. Derek Kilmer (D-Wash.) and Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) to reverse this outrageous cut.
Next year, let’s do what Kentucky and Virginia voters did Nov. 5: Remove Donald Trump and his Republican
minions from office.
Tim Wheeler,
Sequim