Even though I believe that Rep. Tierney should meet with his constituents in an open forum I signed up to participate in his tele-town hall. So, at 6pm I waited by the phone, but it didn't ring. Finally at 6:07 a call from the (202) area code but when I picked it up my ear was met with the shrill tone of a buisy signal. To their credit, they called back 20 minutes later and this time I heard a dial tone. This morning the woman I spoke to in Tierney's Peabody office seemed to be under the impression that my experience was an abberation. She took my information down and promised to get back to me with an answer. The question I really want answered by the good congressman follows:
The MA Medical Society released a study in Nov. 2008 that finds 83% of doctors in MA practice defensive medicine. They broke it down by procedure: 22% X-rays, 28% CT scans, 27% MRI's, 24% ultrasounds, 28% specialist referrals, 18% laboratory tests and 13% of hopsital admissions. That is a lot of medical care being performed not because the doctor thinks its medically necessary, but because they are afraid of lawsuits. Nationwide doctors spend 26 billion dollars a year on medical liability premiums. Which is an increase of 2,000% from 1975 and continues to increase at a 12% clip. The study finds that over 100 billion a year or 12% of total medical costs are spent on defensive medicine. That's over 1 trillion dollars wasted over a 10 year time frame. How is it that in a bill that purports to rein in costs, tort reform is not addressed?
Representative Tierney couldn't find the time to meet with his constituents during the 40 days Congress was in recess. Now he is thinking about asking them for a promotion to the Senate. His audacity astounds. Who knew he had grander ambitions than being a back bench reliable liberal vote for Speaker Pelosi? I hope he realizes that you can't run a campaign for Senate via conference call. We need to send him home to Salem, not the U.S. Senate.
