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Slate: If Doctors Boycott Obamacare, Squeeze Their Pay
Truth Revolt ^ | 11/21/2013 | Bradford Thomas

Posted on 11/21/2013 4:00:52 AM PST by markomalley

The reality of the insatiable liberal desire for control and need to punish those who refuse to play the statist game is on full display in a recent Slate class-envy piece, “Doctors Fire Up the Obamacare Waaambulance,” by Matthew Yglesias.

Fully acknowledging the reality that doctors will be paid (far) less under Obamacare and, thus, will reject the system in droves, Yglesias tries to assuage his liberal readers’ fears by presenting the perfect punishment for the miserly, self-serving M.D. class: Use the Obamacare leviathan and regulations to “reduce doctors’ payment rates elsewhere in the system.” Here’s the key passage:

Medical doctors are highly paid professionals. They earn more money—a lot more money—than your average American. What's more, American doctors get paid more than doctors in any other country. Given how much of health care is financed either directly (Medicare, Medicaid, Veterans Affairs, public-sector workers) or indirectly (tax subsidy for employer-provided insurance) by the federal government, it's natural to make restraining doctors' income part of any program for making health care more affordable. So when you read stories about doctors whining that Affordable Care Act exchange plans don't pay them enough, please throw up a little in your mouth and proceed to ignore the doctors' complaints. The only practical reason to worry about low compensation for doctors in the ACA exchanges is it may cause them to boycott exchange patients. If that happens, the solution is to reduce doctors' payment rates elsewhere in the system. If we ever reach the point where American doctors have been squeezed so badly that they start fleeing north of the border to get higher pay in Canada, then we've squeezed too hard. Until that happens, forget about it.

One positive about the destructive rollout of Obamacare: It's giving America a hard look at the rank underbelly of the radical left. 



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To: markomalley
Although physician income in the US is higher than other countries in terms of absolute dollars, in the US, physician income makes up 8.6% of total healthcare spending, which is a lower ratio than most Western countries. So don't blame doctor income for the high cost of healthcare in the US. While overall healthcare costs in the US have been steadily rising, physician income has been flat or declining. My own income has dropped about 26% over the past 5 years.

The good news is that I am getting out of medicine in 405 days.

41 posted on 11/21/2013 5:11:54 AM PST by SC DOC
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To: OrioleFan

Medicaid is actually the Obama Healthcare plan. Medicaid is, or soon will be, pure single payer socialized medicine.


42 posted on 11/21/2013 5:12:21 AM PST by arthurus (Read Hazlitt's Economics In One Lesson ONLINEhttp://steshaw.org/economics-in-one-lesson/)
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To: dontreadthis
Trending towards fascism...

Trending?

43 posted on 11/21/2013 5:14:13 AM PST by arthurus (Read Hazlitt's Economics In One Lesson ONLINEhttp://steshaw.org/economics-in-one-lesson/)
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To: Ronin

They will go underground and take cash.

Black market medicine: a new growth industry.


44 posted on 11/21/2013 5:14:43 AM PST by Adder (No, Mr. Franklin, we could NOT keep it.)
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To: markomalley

Hey, but if we have a right to health care, that means doctors have to be our slaves.


45 posted on 11/21/2013 5:15:25 AM PST by The_Victor (If all I want is a warm feeling, I should just wet my pants.)
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To: arthurus

assuming that there is a continuum


46 posted on 11/21/2013 5:16:41 AM PST by dontreadthis
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To: markomalley
Hay, can we do this to actors, singers, and athletes? I think they make way too much money. Besides, I think we need medical care more than entertainment so if a bunch move to Canada, who would be hurt? The government can use their money better than they can. I'm sure people like Oprah won't mind, they love this bs. They vote for it all the time.
47 posted on 11/21/2013 5:16:46 AM PST by Razz Barry (Round'em up, send'em home.)
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To: gitmo

I believe Hillarycare also had provisions for fining (or worse) patients as well as Doctors for going outside of their zones.


48 posted on 11/21/2013 5:16:51 AM PST by Cyber Liberty (We're At That Awkward Stage: It's too late to vote them out, too early to shoot the bastards.)
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To: Mister Da

Those places have for several years been busily changing their tax and visa rules in order to attract American doctors to set up off shore clinics and practices.


49 posted on 11/21/2013 5:17:13 AM PST by arthurus (Read Hazlitt's Economics In One Lesson ONLINEhttp://steshaw.org/economics-in-one-lesson/)
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To: markomalley
Matthew Yglesias

The stupid is strong with this one.

5.56mm

50 posted on 11/21/2013 5:17:45 AM PST by M Kehoe
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To: Jack Hydrazine
collectivism only benefits those two extremes of society

Until, of course, the productive class is all gone. Then the Ruling Class squeezes the Serf Class and shrinks as production supports fewer and fewer Rulers and apparatchiks. The internecine back knifing among the rulers ramps up as the general famine is approached.

51 posted on 11/21/2013 5:20:58 AM PST by arthurus (Read Hazlitt's Economics In One Lesson ONLINEhttp://steshaw.org/economics-in-one-lesson/)
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To: markomalley

And if they quit entirely, draft them and force them to work for minimum wage.


52 posted on 11/21/2013 5:27:18 AM PST by E. Pluribus Unum (Who knew that one day professional wrestling would be less fake than professional journalism?)
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To: maxwellsmart_agent
The law is working, if not smoothly, working as it was designed to work. Just pay attention to the continuing reports of all the great numbers of people "qualifying" for Medicaid. That is the single payer medicine that is the original and continuing goal. Congress doesn't even have to pass any new laws. The regime simply bit by bit by EO changes the rules for Medicaid eligibility and sucks ever more people into that system, eventually making Medicaid mandatory for everyone. The Rulers have shown that they can do things like that without Congress changing or enacting anything new. Republicans will complain and yowl but will not try to stop it.
53 posted on 11/21/2013 5:27:45 AM PST by arthurus (Read Hazlitt's Economics In One Lesson ONLINEhttp://steshaw.org/economics-in-one-lesson/)
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To: lucky american

Amazing that nothing said about the patient. Squeeze Doctors and you squeeze their patients. To suggest you turn a Doctor’s diagnosis over to nurses is just stupid. To turn medical care diagnosis over to a government bureaucracy like the IRS is the work of imbeciles!

If you really care about overpaid professionals why not start on lawyers? Frankly I think that lawyers are obscenely overpaid! And news reporters? How much do they get paid to lie?

http://www.dailyfinance.com/2009/09/29/dan-rather-loses-70-million-case-against-cbs/


54 posted on 11/21/2013 5:30:51 AM PST by Rock N Jones
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To: Razz Barry

“Hay, can we do this to actors, singers, and athletes?”

I’d like to see a law enacting requiring that any restriction placed on the potential income of doctors be equally applied to all lawyers. Require lawyers to accept government-mandated payments that won’t cover their operating expenses.

That would put a stop to all this in a hurry.


55 posted on 11/21/2013 5:36:01 AM PST by Junk Silver
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To: markomalley

Doctor pay is already squeezed. They write off thousands of dollars every month.

Marxists sure do like to punish people for dissent.


56 posted on 11/21/2013 5:36:19 AM PST by RginTN
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To: markomalley

How about squeezing payments to college and university professors? How about reducing their paid sabbaticals which are once every 5 years?


57 posted on 11/21/2013 5:39:34 AM PST by Gumdrop
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To: markomalley

How about proposing a “socialized medicine tax” on liberals only? That is, if you want socialized medicine, you have to pay full price to get it. No insurance, no government support. Some of the big advantages:

1) The wealthy advocates of socialized medicine, like Bill Gates and George Soros, are more than able to pay $300 for an aspirin, $1,000 for a band-aid, and $300,000 to have a wart frozen off with liquid nitrogen. So that’s what they should pay, even if they get medical care in another country. Likewise, they should be prohibited from having any health insurance.

2) Every registered Democrat has to be on Obamacare, which is paid for exclusively by a tax on them. No private insurance or government funding for them. Their medical care is not subsidized by anyone else, but it mandatory for them. If they don’t pay, their wages are garnished, their savings and investments are looted, and their property sold off. They wanted it, they get it.


58 posted on 11/21/2013 5:41:53 AM PST by yefragetuwrabrumuy (War on Terror news at rantburg.com)
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To: markomalley
Communists are always the same.

Here's a joke from the Brezhnev years - and we are still in Lenin circa 1916 time!:

"Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev and Brezhnev are all travelling together in a railway carriage. Unexpectedly the train stops. Lenin suggests: "Perhaps, we should call a subbotnik, so that workers and peasants fix the problem." Stalin puts his head out of the window and shouts, "If the train does not start moving, the driver will be executed!" But the train doesn't start moving. Khrushchev then shouts, "Let's take the rails behind the train and use them to construct the tracks in the front". But it still doesn't move. Brezhnev then says, "Comrades, Comrades, let's draw the curtains, turn on the gramophone and pretend we're moving!"

59 posted on 11/21/2013 5:44:48 AM PST by Jim Noble (When strong, avoid them. Attack their weaknesses. Emerge to their surprise.)
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To: arthurus
Hey, socialists drove away US manufacturing to Asia. It can easily happen to the health care industry.

Increasingly, health care can be provided remotely. Video exams, remote testing & evaluation, doctor consultations can all be done from outside the USA. Medical R&D need not occur on US soil.

Decades ago, if you wanted a VW Van, it was cheaper to buy it in Germany & ship it to the USA, while enjoying a nice vacation, than it was to buy that same VW Van in the USA.

Obamacare could be so expensive & so bad that elective or non-urgent surgery becomes cheaper & safer in Martinique, plus you & the family get a nice recuperation/vacation on a tropical island.

60 posted on 11/21/2013 5:54:43 AM PST by Mister Da (The mark of a wise man is not what he knows, but what he knows he doesn't know!)
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