I don't often get Forbes, but the Oct 6 issue caught my eye. Leafing through it, I found something fun in the letters column. It's in response to a 'fact & comment' column in the Sept 22 issue, the core of which is: ---------------- Here's how this basic attack on our personal freedom will work: A doctor who provides medical services to a Medicare-eligible patient without billing Medicare must sign an affidavit to the Secretary of Health and Human Services that he or she will not treat a single Medicare patient for the next two years. Any doctor found treating both Medicare patients and Medicare-eligible private patients will be subject to fines and perhaps prison. As Moffit points out, Section 4507 is "deliberately designed to make private contracting and medicine all but impossible except for physicians who reside in very wealthy communities." Senator Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) correctly observes that this prohibition is the equivalent of Social Security's barring retirees from dealing with stockbrokers: "Surely, a law that made it illegal to supplement with private funds the amount received from Social Security would be met with disbelief and derision." Yet that is the equivalent of what this Medicare regulation does. ------------------ The letter reads: SIR: I have been treating Medicare patients for cash without filing Medicare claims for years. I do not intend to stop. If the government receives no forms, how will it know that a beneficiary received care from me? And the feds can't seize my records. They are all computerized and encrypted. Anthony A. Cassens, M.D Los Angeles, Calif. --------------------- Peter Trei trei@process.com