Posted on 04/27/2009 4:22:50 PM PDT by neverdem
WASHINGTON — Obama administration officials, alarmed at doctor shortages, are looking for ways to increase the supply of physicians to meet the needs of an aging population and millions of uninsured people who would gain coverage under legislation championed by the president.
The officials said they were particularly concerned about shortages of primary care providers who are the main source of health care for most Americans.
One proposal — to increase Medicare payments to general practitioners, at the expense of high-paid specialists — has touched off a lobbying fight.
Family doctors and internists are pressing Congress for an increase in their Medicare payments. But medical specialists are lobbying against any change that would cut their reimbursements. Congress, the specialists say, should find additional money to pay for primary care and should not redistribute dollars among doctors — a difficult argument at a time of huge budget deficits.
Some of the proposed solutions, while advancing one of President Obama’s goals, could frustrate others. Increasing the supply of doctors, for example, would increase access to care but could make it more difficult to rein in costs.
The need for more doctors comes up at almost every Congressional hearing and White House forum on health care. “We’re not producing enough primary care physicians,” Mr. Obama said at one forum. “The costs of medical education are so high that people feel that they’ve got to specialize.” New doctors typically owe more than $140,000 in loans when they graduate.
Lawmakers from both parties say the shortage of health care professionals is already having serious consequences. “We don’t have enough doctors in primary care or in any specialty,” said Representative Shelley Berkley, Democrat of Nevada.
Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah, said, “The work force shortage is reaching crisis proportions.”
Even people with insurance have...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Too bad, they don't have a clue.
The cheap fix is to pay or forgive their student loans in exchange for practicing as a primary care position for 3 years.
What was that movie? You know, the movie with the black guy in the prison ward telling what’s his face “Don’t let that Korean doctor get hold of you”. “I came in here for (you name it) and he cut off my balls.” “Now I don’t care about nuthin!”
Good question of how do we train more doctors. It’s something to consider even if we don’t go to universal healthcare. The lead time to train doctors, including medical school and residencies is so long, it would take many years to see results of any big new expansion of medical schools.
As posted on any reply but think it fits hear also:
OK so let me see if I have it correct as to what he is saying: Cut the elderly health care even though we need to add illegals (excuse me - I’m bad)and WE just had to add 24 year old college kids whose parents only make $80,000.00 via the SCHIPP program and everyone gets an abortion for free. And yes we demoRATS scared the pants off the elderly that republicans were going to take away some of their social security/medicare so dems could get the votes (they were used) and now ah well. Bye bye old folks. Is that what he is saying?
All they have to do is make MD an undergraduate course and award MDs to everyone now in school who has passed an anatomy class. Thus our English style New Medicine can have the same talented doctors that England is declining to. The cream of the English medical crop are in Asia- India and Thailand- practicing freemarket medicine.
Gosh, they might get so hard up for Physicians that they have to allow white males back into medical schools. Imagine that.
My Dad was a veterinarian in a small town in Wyoming when I was born. They also had only one doctor. When either left town, the other was on call for the patients, regardless of species. That's the way things were done in those days. Lawyers wouldn't permit it today, but the fact of the matter is that veterinarians are better trained than most doctors-- they have experience on more species!
Not only the question of how do you train more physicians, but how to make healthcare a more lucrative and enticing profession. Take away the incentives to work in a free market and to make money based on your skills and work ethic, you take a way a large segment of the population who may have considered practicing medicine.
Not sure we have a shortage of doctors, just a shortage of doctors who want to be primary care physicians, i.e. family doctors.
It doesn’t pay enough for the grind and cost of med school.
I’m of the opinion that it just needs to be incentivized a bit. I also think there is nothing wrong with MD’s that have trained in a lucrative specialty part-timing it at a family care clinic in exchange for points off their student debt. I also think they would be better DR’s from the experience.
Another cheap way to incentivize family practice is to make the first 100-200K tax free depending on the zip code. Meaning no tax benefit for practising in 90210, but a maximum benefit for practicing or even part-time work in some less lovely zip code.
As a physician would you really like working in a government controlled clinic where some faceless bureaucrat tells you how to treat patients? ..or have to explain to a family why their active 80 year old grandmother cannot get a pacemaker because she is too old for the government guidelines and now must live in a nursing home? ...or break the bad news to parents that their infant born with a cleft palate will have to wait months possibly years for corrective surgery? ...or tell a young wife and mother that she cannot get the latest breast cancer treatment because the government has deemed it to be too expensive? Welcome to Obama Care.
We have the legal profession to thank for this state of affairs. A doctor’s life is hard enough without having some shyster looking over your shoulder 24/7.
One secret to decreasing the cost of health care in the US is to get the friggin lawyers out of the equation. Now, I am a doc, and my very best friend is a lawyer (who doesn’t sue doctors). Yes, there is certainly malpractice, and it should be punished accordingly. But as long as every single doctor in this country needs to work as if there is a tiny lawyer standing on his/her shoulder all day long, then every single test will be run, every angle pursued and common sense will be thrown out the door in favor of covering one’s butt.
That is a fact of our lives.
Well you’re right that Zero won’t consider any fix that doesn’t involve buckets of money and increased government control.
He’d prefer to tell DR’s what kind of medicine they will practice and where. He’ll do to medicine what he’s doing to GM.
Then where will Canadians go for decent medical care?
I have discouraged my own children, subtly, from pursuing a career in health care.
I've got it! Let's nationalize health care and cut reimbursements to doctors even more! Yeah, that'll have 'em coming in droves!
You want ME to pay off doctor's loans? Is that what you just said?
Patients, that would be guys like me, should have the option to legally ‘opt out’ of the frivolous lawsuits. Then a dual pricing plan could be offered.
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