Report: 83 percent of doctors have considered quitting over Obamacare

Daily Caller ^ | 7/9/12 | Sally Neilson

[Nachum]

Eighty-three percent of American physicians have considered leaving their practices over President Barack Obama’s health care reform law, according to a survey released by the Doctor Patient Medical Association.

The DPMA, a non-partisan association of doctors and patients, surveyed a random selection of 699 doctors nationwide. The survey found that the majority have thought about bailing out of their careers over the legislation, which was upheld last month by the Supreme Court.

Even if doctors do not quit their jobs over the ruling, America will face a shortage of at least 90,000 doctors by 2020. The newly passed health care bill increases the demand for physicians by expanding insurance coverage. This change will exacerbate the current shortage as more Americans live past 65.

By 2025 the shortage will balloon to over 130,000, Len Marquez, the director of government relations at the American Association of Medical Colleges, told The Daily Caller.

“One of our primary concerns is that you’ve got an aging physician workforce and you have these new beneficiaries — these newly insured people — coming through the system,” he said. “There will be strains and there will be physician shortages.”

The DPMA found that many in the medical profession do not believe the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will lead to better access to medical care for the majority of Americans, co-founder of the DPMA Kathryn Serkes told TheDC.

“Doctors clearly understand what Washington does not — that a piece of paper that says you are ‘covered’ by insurance or ‘enrolled’ in Medicare or Medicaid does not translate to actual medical care when doctors can’t afford to see patients at the lowball payments, and patients have to jump through government and insurance company bureaucratic hoops,” she said.

[SaraJohnson]

True believing pinkos won’t quit but must docs close to retirement will. They can’t afford it so close to retirement age. I know plenty who will retire and change careers and that is a crying shame. What a loss to the people of this country. We won’t be able to rebuild what the pinkos destroy.

[Gay State Conservative]

This figure doesn't sound right to me.I can believe that a substantial percentage of older physicians...those who might be inclined to retire within the next,say,five years anyway...might bow out early.But as for the others...medicine is a very,very well paying occupation and one that requires upward of $400K in tuition plus more years of torture during post graduate training.

I worked for many years in a very famous hospital so I have some understanding of the profession.But,OTOH,I've been wrong before and could be wrong now.

[CommerceComet]

If this arrangement allows for an exodus of doctors from Obama/Romneycare, do you think that this would be allowed to stand? Doctors still have to be licensed by the state who can impose restrictions on their actions. I'm still skeptical that the government is going to allow physicians to abandon and ultimately weaken, the mandated system.

I'd love to see the mandated system overturned but I don't see this method as accomplishing much more than leading to another round of regulation to prevent these free agents. The ultimate goal of Obama/Romneycare is not to fix the medical system but instead to bring it under the total control of the government.

[Bshaw]

Does the article imply that the most educated among us will not view my healthcare as a right, which they are required to provide as Obama proscribes?

Surely they jest!

[muir_redwoods]

Perhaps they jest but I’ve always been a bit curious about this concept of a right that unavoidably requires the services of a third party. By what tortures logic do they find a path whereby one man’s needs become another man’s obligations?

[Jedidah]

I live in Texas where government is a necessary evil and business is free to make profit.

No way would Austin get by with telling doctors how to operate here. Pun intended.

[CommerceComet]

No way would Austin get by with telling doctors how to operate here. Pun intended.

Which is what is so dangerous about Obama/RomneyCare - it gives so much power to the federal government that states may have little or no choice in what they do. How would health care be any different than the myriad of areas where the federal government imposes its will on the states and the states often have little or no recourse?

Physicians, like any other licensed professionals, are controlled by the regulations of the state board - they don't have any choice if they want to keep their license to practice. In turn, federal mandates are generally binding on state boards. That's what is so scary about Obama/RomneyCare and the unregulated panels (remember the death panels which first appeared in Mitt's beta version of ObamaCare) which have the authority to dictate to just about everyone short of Congress.

[b4its2late]

They won’t be making $250,000 per year. Not even the specialists. They may be lucky to make half that, and the profession will be dominated by GP’s and assistants who will wait on the vast numbers in the waiting rooms. All the doctors and their staffs will be controlled by government reimbursement formula’s and calculations. It’s gonna get ugly for them so they probably will drop out of it, at least the ones that have accumulated enough to be able to.