Obamacare seeks to drown Physicians
in bureaucracy! Physicians seek to quit Medicine (retire, walk-away, leave…)!
Will Americans have coverage….Maybe….will Americans get care…NOPE!
NRO’s health-care blog.
“No
matter how we reform health care, we will keep this promise to the American
people: If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor, period.”
President Barack Obama,
Speech to the American Medical Association
Chicago, June 15, 2009
In truth, prospects are bleak that you
will be able to keep your doctor and even bleaker that there will be enough
doctors to meet demand under Obamacare.
The health overhaul law expands health
insurance to millions more people without significantly increasing the number
of physicians or other providers. And Obamacare has exacerbated the physician
shortage because many are considering leavingthe
practice of medicine altogether rather than practice under the dictates of
Washington bureaucracies.
An Investor’s Business Daily/TIPP
survey conducted
in September of 2009 found that 45 percent of doctors said they “would consider
leaving their practice or taking an early retirement” if the health law stands.
More than 800,000 doctors were
practicing in 2006, according to government data. Projecting the poll’s finding
onto that population means that 360,000 doctors would consider quitting!
And even without a mass exodus, the
Association of American Medical Colleges envisions a shortageof about 160,000 doctors by 2025.
The greatest tragedy of Obamacare may
be losing prematurely a generation of the most highly-trained, skilled physicians
in history to a health overhaul law that the American people did everything
they could to stop.
Physicians say they simply won’t
practice under Obamacare rules that strip away much of their autonomy, drown
them in bureaucracy, and leave them even more exposed to lawsuits.
Health care already is one of the most
highly-regulated industries in the country, and doctors and nurses are forced
to devote a significant amount of their day to detailed paperwork, adding to
their frustration and taking away from time with patients. Reporting
requirements will increase significantly under the health overhaul law, and the
penalties for those who run afoul of the avalanche of new rules also will
increase.
The supply of doctors will dwindle as
demand for services reaches an all-time high. Fewer of those in private
practice are taking patients on Medicare, and even fewer can afford to see the
millions of new patients likely to be enrolled in Medicaid.
By increasing demand for care without a
comparable increase in the supply of doctors to treat the additional infusion
of patients, the law will exacerbate the current physician shortage, as the New
York Times reportedon Sunday.
“In the Inland Empire, an economically
depressed region in Southern California, President Obama’s health care law is
expected to extend insurance coverage to more than 300,000 people by 2014,” the
Times reports.
“But coverage will not necessarily
translate into care: Local health experts doubt there will be enough doctors to
meet the area’s needs. There are not enough now. Other places around the
country, including the Mississippi Delta, Detroit and suburban Phoenix, face
similar problems,” according to the article.
Shortly after the law was passed, an
April 2010 survey of physicians, conducted by Athena Health and Sermo, foundthat 79 percent of physicians were
less optimistic about the future of medicine; 66 percent said they would
consider dropping out of government health programs; and 53 percent would
consider opting out of insurance altogether.
In August of 2010, The Physicians
Foundation completed another major survey of doctors and found that:
- 67% of doctors had a “somewhat” or “very”
negative initial reaction to the new law
- 74% said they would take steps to change their medical
practice over the next one to three years
- 60% of these doctors said that the new law will force
them to close or restrict certain categories of patients: 93% will stop
seeing or restrict the number of Medicaid patients they see, and 87% will
close or restrict their Medicare practice.
- Ominously, 89% of physicians said that they believed
that the survival of the traditional model of independent private medical
practice is threatened. In fact, hospitals already ownmore than half of medical
practices, and that unwelcome trend will be accelerated under the new
health law.
Seniors are most at risk because they have
the greatest need for medical care. The health law takes more than $700 billion
out of Medicare to finance new health-insurance spending, primarily by cutting
payments to physicians and Medicare Advantage health plans.
If these cuts were to stand, experts at
the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services say the number of hospitals, nursing homes,
and hospice centers facing financial losses under the new law would jump to
“roughly” 25 percent in 2030 and 40 percent by 2050. Many Medicare providers
will be forced to either stop seeing Medicare patients or go bankrupt entirely.
Doctors are quietly making their plans
now to restructure their practices, retire early, get another job, or otherwise
protect themselves from the coming regulatory avalanche and payment cuts.
Ultimately, the consequences of the
health overhaul law will be passed along to patients through restricted access,
long waits for appointments, and rationed care. It’s up to the voters in
November to pull the emergency brake, that last chance to stop the Obamacare
freight train.
