Legal Effort to Stop New Physician Hospital Restrictions that Harm Medicare Beneficiaries

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Today RetireSafe President Thair Phillips announced, on behalf of the organization's more than 400,000 senior-citizen supporters nationwide, that the group had filed an Amicus Curiae Brief in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas in support of efforts to stop the severe new restrictions on the expansion of physician-owned hospitals which are included in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

"The Brief Amicus Curiae is filed by RetireSafe in support of Plaintiffs Physician Hospitals of America and Texas Spine & Joint Hospital, Ltd.'s opposition to Defendant Secretary Sebelius' Motion to Dismiss and Motion for Summary Judgment," Phillips explained.

He said the Brief notes that "the enactment of Section 6001 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), P.L. 111-148, the law that is the subject of this lawsuit, is of serious concern to RetireSafe and the thousands of seniors it represents." "RetireSafe seeks to bring to the Court's consideration certain issues in this case that are the unique perspective of America's senior citizens, which is not represented by either party," Phillips stated.

He said the Brief rightly states that "high-quality physician-owned hospitals have been the unjustified target of Congress's latest health-care 'reform' efforts." "Critical to every older American, Section 6001 of the PPACA denies Medicare beneficiaries access to the best in hospital care, as well as the health care market's best prices, by limiting the ability of existing physician-owned hospitals to serve more patients and preventing new physician-owned hospitals from coming online," Phillips noted. "The purported justifications for Section 6001 are truly irrational and in no way satisfy the constitutional requirements of Due Process," he maintained.

"The real reason for Section 6001 is to permit non-physician-owned hospitals to gain a competitive advantage over physician-owned hospitals, with the goal of eventually extinguishing the physician-owned hospital as a business model," Phillips continued. "Yet physician-owned hospitals are outstanding, high-quality facilities that serve the growing millions of older Americans on Medicare," he said. "If Section 6001 is permitted to remain law, senior citizens would be denied access to new physician-owned hospitals, and the physician-owned hospitals now available to seniors would be put out of business," Phillips concluded.

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