Harmful reductions

President Obama has announced a plan to cut hundreds of billions from Medicare over the next decade to reduce spending in federal health care. While we accept that there will be a need for some cost cutting, we would like to participate in the discussion of where we can afford to cut into life-saving chemotherapy and the related drugs in the cancer treatment protocol.

Community oncology clinics, which treat more than 80 percent of Americans battling cancer, are already struggling to care for Medicare patients. Given that the administration is now discussing an additional $313 billion in cuts to Medicare, in addition to significant cuts already proposed, cancer care in this country is truly in jeopardy.

We all agree that the Medicare system is broken, even though Americans rely on it for approximately 45 percent of all cancer-care payments. In fact, the cancer-care delivery system is already in jeopardy due to cuts in Medicare over the past two to three years, lowering reimbursement for chemotherapy drugs and administration to oncologists. Medicare has cut reimbursement for cancer treatment to such a low level that it is negatively impacting the quality of care provided to seniors.

The Medicare cuts have now reached the point where cancer-care practices cannot stay in business, and cancer patients often cannot afford necessary treatments. Medicare does not reimburse for essential services required by cancer patients, such as treatment planning and care coordination. Oncologists are often reimbursed at less than the acquisition cost for the expensive cancer drugs. Clinics across the country report a freeze on hiring and the cutting of staff - and some have already been forced to close facilities, especially in rural areas.

On Florida's West Coast, our offices may be forced to close our doors to Medicare patients and send them to area hospitals for cancer treatments.This will cause extraordinary hardship on these patients and steeply increase the cost of treatment. This benefits no one, and it definitely will not save Medicare any money. If further Medicare cuts are made, our local cancer-care delivery system will be dismantled in short order.

Health-care reform should be guided by the principle that we should "fix what's broken and build on what already works." Though the United States already has the best overall cancer care in the world (as measured by five-year survival rates), on average cancer still kills one American each minute. We can certainly improve upon our successes, and oncologists have presented Congress with specific programs to enhance the quality of care while controlling costs.