On health care, lobbyists flex muscle: Medicare overruled on bone scan tests

The Boston Globe reports:

In its heyday just four years ago, Dan Burneika’s company performed 2,000 medical imaging exams a month, deploying a fleet of 10 mobile scanners that roamed New England, testing the bones of elderly women for signs of osteoporosis.

But Medicare decided it was paying too much for each test and began cutting the reimbursement from about $140 to $50. With his profit margin eroding, Burneika and his partner sold their mobile scanners and closed the business in Harvard, Mass.

“It was quite profitable,’’ said Burneika. “Until the end.’’

But for lobbyists, the battle was just beginning.

A $3 million campaign by doctors, scanner operators, manufacturers, and groups devoted to women’s health helped persuade lawmakers to overrule Medicare administrators this year and restore much of the reimbursement for osteoporosis tests. In a little-noticed provision buried deep in the sweeping new health care bill, Congress decreed that Medicare shall pay $97 for each test, instead of $50.

It was a stark instance of a narrowly tailored, special-interest political victory in a law trumpeted by President Obama and Democrats as putting America on a path to a more rational health care system, where decisions are made on medical evidence and patient outcomes.

Medical care by rent seeking.