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When Doctors Opt Out
Wall Street Journal ^ | April 17, 2009 | MARC SIEGEL

Posted on 04/19/2009 5:56:35 AM PDT by safisoft

Here's something that has gotten lost in the drive to institute universal health insurance: Health insurance doesn't automatically lead to health care. And with more and more doctors dropping out of one insurance plan or another, especially government plans, there is no guarantee that you will be able to see a physician no matter what coverage you have.

(Excerpt) Read more at google.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Constitution/Conservatism
KEYWORDS: luckyo; medicare; medicine; socialism; taxes
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Atlas Shrugged. When the goobermint forces doctors to accept all insurance, expect to see fewer doctors...

The Kenyan will never understand that most productive people were not "extraordinarily lucky" like he says he is. Most actually work very hard to get where they are - at real jobs, not community organization. Take away the incentive, and you get questions like, "Who is John Galt?"
1 posted on 04/19/2009 5:56:35 AM PDT by safisoft
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To: safisoft
"Most actually work very hard to get where they are"

Many who achieve "overnight" success have labored for decades in the same direction.

2 posted on 04/19/2009 6:02:31 AM PDT by Paladin2 (Big Ears + Big Spending --> BigEarMarx, the man behind TOTUS)
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To: safisoft

After Ocommie desroys the health care system I wonder where the Doctors will re locate. Bahamas? Or maybe hospital ships in International waters.


3 posted on 04/19/2009 6:03:43 AM PDT by screaminsunshine (!!)
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To: safisoft

That gosh darn free will again, getting in the way of the looters.


4 posted on 04/19/2009 6:03:47 AM PDT by H.Akston (I sure hope that sub-prime lending wasn't really a government spending stimulus package.)
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To: Paladin2

NO KIDDIN’ !


5 posted on 04/19/2009 6:04:03 AM PDT by Eric in the Ozarks
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To: safisoft

Let’s see - who should get my money?
A trained physician - or - an Obamaloon dhimmicrat incapable of spelling “science”?

Physician or Obamaloon?
Physician or Obamaloon?

Tough question.


6 posted on 04/19/2009 6:07:38 AM PDT by Da Coyote
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To: safisoft

Then there are the drug companies.

With the recent supreme court ruling, the drug companies are going to require some sort of hold harmless from the patient. A patient desiring a drug or perhaps treatment must sign a waiver indicating they recognize the possibility of side effects including ddeath and are willing to accept the risk.

Since the ruling, there is a surge in lawyer s trolling on TV


7 posted on 04/19/2009 6:08:23 AM PDT by bert (K.E. N.P. +12 . John Galt hell !...... where is Francisco dÂ’Anconia)
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To: safisoft

I can add, our doctor does not take Medicare patients. He will continue treating us once we reach that age but he will not accept new patients with Medicare. I doubt he’s alone in this and I suspect more doctors will opt out of government plans unless coerced into accepting them. I know my doctor is already making plans to leave medicine all together if that happens.


8 posted on 04/19/2009 6:10:43 AM PDT by Morgan in Denver (Barack Hussein Obama: More corrupt than Clinton, more inept than Carter.)
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To: safisoft

The government will just pass a law that makes it illegal to not take Medicare. Poof! Problem solved!


9 posted on 04/19/2009 6:11:09 AM PDT by FightThePower! (Fight the powers that be!)
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To: safisoft

Golly! Surpise, surprise.


10 posted on 04/19/2009 6:13:12 AM PDT by Panzerlied ("We shall never surrender!")
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To: safisoft
I did a thread on that comment:

Obama Finally Tells the Truth (If you can read between the lines)

We're also doing away with the unnecessary giveaways that have thrown our tax code out of balance. I said this during the campaign, I'm now saying it as President: We need to stop giving tax breaks to companies that stash profits or ship jobs overseas so we can invest in job creation here at home. And we need to end the tax breaks for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans, so that people like me, who are extraordinarily lucky, are paying the same rates that the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans paid when Bill Clinton was President.

Read the speech here.

11 posted on 04/19/2009 6:15:32 AM PDT by raybbr (It's going to get a lot worse now that the anchor babies are voting!)
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To: screaminsunshine
After Ocommie desroys the health care system
I wonder where the Doctors will re locate.

Nah...
They would just quit
I suspect, given my conversations “around the table”
~30% would drop out entirely

The task is too destructive to self
and corrosive to the family
to continue in a socialist system

My own personal fall back position perhaps
would be to teach

12 posted on 04/19/2009 6:17:34 AM PDT by HangnJudge
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To: safisoft

More doctors are electing to not accept Medicare. Some are giving up the practice of medicine altogether. A physician friend of mine is casting about for other ways to pay the mortgage and the kids’ college tuition. Others are starting businesses that have some medical connection but don’t involve hands-on patient care. And in the future, as incomes for physicians fall and the practice of medicine becomes more difficult, fewer doctors will enter the field. Then we get to have even more foreign doctors than we do now.


13 posted on 04/19/2009 6:18:29 AM PDT by ottbmare (Ein Reich, ein Volk, ein Obama!)
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To: HangnJudge
My own personal fall back position perhaps would be to teach...others how not to become doctors?
14 posted on 04/19/2009 6:19:41 AM PDT by brewcrew
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To: HangnJudge
“They would just quit”

Most can't afford to quit. The older doctor's might be able to. But the younger doctors with $250,000 worth of student loans will face a choice. Get an MBA and become an investment banker, leave the country and practice medecine elsewhere, or be a slave to the government.

15 posted on 04/19/2009 6:22:25 AM PDT by FightThePower! (Fight the powers that be!)
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To: Morgan in Denver
I know my doctor is already making plans to leave medicine all together if that happens.

My doctor's father was a doctor. He just told me his sons will not be.

I know another doctor who walked away from his practice, and opened a cash walk-in clinic. I know another who started a Membership Practice. I know yet another who walked away to become an author.

Being micromanaged and second guessed by bean counters and bureacrats who pretend to practice Medicine will do that to a person.

They Shrugged.

16 posted on 04/19/2009 6:27:47 AM PDT by Gorzaloon (Roark, Architect.)
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To: safisoft
expect to see fewer doctors

They will import replacements from third world countries, make them legal, and they will work for the new gummint health plan. The good ones will go off-shore and set up private clinics for those who can pay.

17 posted on 04/19/2009 6:28:13 AM PDT by Right Wing Assault ( Obama, you're off the island!)
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To: Morgan in Denver

My doctor (who is also Canadian) recently dropped her Medicare assignment. She told me they owe her $180,000. She is a small one doctor office and just cannot afford to do business that way.
I see more and more doctors doing this.


18 posted on 04/19/2009 6:31:28 AM PDT by sheana
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To: safisoft

We have a winner! I will not work for the government.


19 posted on 04/19/2009 6:33:34 AM PDT by Mom MD (Jesus is the Light of the world!)
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To: Right Wing Assault

This is already happening. Retired friend in Phoenix has doctors from India and she says there are no white American doctors she can find in the area she lives in. And, get this, her Indian doctor is talking about limiting his patients too.


20 posted on 04/19/2009 6:35:51 AM PDT by Morgan in Denver (Barack Hussein Obama: More corrupt than Clinton, more inept than Carter.)
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