Posted on 10/23/2013 9:08:55 AM PDT by KeyLargo
ObamaCare 2016: Happy Yet? The website problems were finally solved. But the doctor shortage is a nightmare. By Bradley Allen Oct. 22, 2013 7:04 p.m. ET
Three years after the disastrous launch of the Affordable Care Act, most of the website troubles finally have been ironed out. People are now able to log on to the government's ACA website and to most of the state health-insurance exchanges. The public has grudgingly come to accept higher insurance premiums, new taxes and increases in part-time workers who were formerly full-time. But Americans are irate anyway—because now they're seeing the health-care law's destructive effect on the fundamental nature of the way their care is delivered.
Even before the ACA's launch in 2013, many physicians—seeing the changes in their profession that lay ahead—had begun talking their children out of going to medical school. After the launch, compensation fell, while nothing in the ACA stopped lawsuits and malpractice premiums from rising. Doctors must now see many more patients each day to meet expenses, all while dealing with the mountains of paperwork mandated by the health-care law.
David G. Klein
The forecast shortage of doctors has become a real problem. It started in 2014 when the ACA cut $716 billion from Medicare to accommodate 30 million newly "insured" people through an expansion of Medicaid. More important, the predicted shortage of 42,000 primary-care physicians and that of specialists (such as heart surgeons) was vastly underestimated. It didn't take into account the ACA's effect on doctors retiring early, refusing new patients or going into concierge medicine. These estimates also ignored the millions of immigrants who would be seeking a physician after having been granted legal status.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
In practical effect, the ACA will have two consequences. One, foreign-trained doctors will be sought with a big expansion in H1B visas for these physicians who already make up a large part of the medical profession in the US. Two, the places that immigrant physicians can practice will be expanded greatly from the current “underserved areas” where they currently take up practice. In effect, the entire US outside of NYC and the cities that have a large surplus of physicians, will become an “underserved area”.
The doctor can’t see you now.
Consumers may hear that a lot more often after getting health insurance under President Obama’s Affordable Care Act.
To hold down premiums, major insurers in California have sharply limited the number of doctors and hospitals available to patients in the state’s new health insurance market opening Oct. 1.
New data reveal the extent of those cuts in California, a crucial test bed for the federal healthcare law.
These diminished medical networks are fueling growing concerns that many patients will still struggle to get care despite the nation’s biggest healthcare expansion in half a century.
Consumers could see long wait times, a scarcity of specialists and loss of a longtime doctor.
“These narrow networks won’t work because they cut off access for patients,” said Dr. Richard Baker, executive director of the Urban Health Institute at Charles Drew University of Medicine and Science in Los Angeles. “We don’t want this to become a roadblock.”
This will be solved with a black market.....both visiting your “doctor” along with any drugs or services that may be needed.
Conscript the doctors and put them to work in ObamaCare clinics. From each according to his ability, you know. /sarc
If someone aspires to become a physician in the US, it might be more beneficial to go get their training and creds in another country first (Mexico for instance). It will save them a lot of money. They may then be able to afford to be a doctor in the US in the future.
There will also be Affirmative Action in medical schools, grants and loan forgiveness for such students, but even with that it will be years before they can practice.
10,416 hours and I’m outa here.
Sorry to hear it Dr. I’m sure your Patients over the years have appreciated your time, consideration and dedication. You will be missed by them more than you’ll ever know. I certainly understand your decision. All the best!
A job engine sputters as hospitals cut staff
Paul Davidson and Barbara Hansen, USA TODAY 7:34 p.m. EDT October 13, 2013
Hospitals are cutting thousands of jobs, undercutting a sector that was a reliable source of job growth, even through the recession.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2013/10/13/hospital-job-cuts/2947929/
Ummmm. Most of the website troubles have been ironed out? Why would anyone read on after that BS in the first line. This guy is nuts!
That’s the point of the item, October 2016!
“That’s the point of the item, October 2016!”
Thank you that is what happens when freepers do not read the article at the link but rather just wing it and post some nonsense without bothering to understand what the writer was really saying.
And yes, the author was forecasting into the future and of course the author is aware that at the present time the website does not work.
Death Panels Alive And Well In Canada And Coming Here
Posted 10/22/2013 07:00 PM ET
Health Care: Canada’s Supreme Court has ruled that under the “law of the land” in Ontario, a government board, not the family or doctors, has the ultimate power to pull the plug on a patient.
Lost in the discussion of defunding ObamaCare and the failed effort in Congress is the fact that failure means the government’s ability to defund your life through the ObamaCare’s Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) remains. IPAB is regarded by many, starting with former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, as a death panel whose decisions based on cost effectiveness would result in health care rationing.
A glimpse of this brave new world can be had by casting a glance at our neighbor to the north. There, Canada’s Supreme Court ruled 5-2 that under Ontario’s Health Care Consent Act, which has been on the books for nearly two decades, doctors cannot overrule a family’s wishes for an incapacitated patient regarding life or death decisions, but an administrative tribunal can.
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