Posted on 03/23/2010 9:10:36 PM PDT by Nachum
On the morning after Sunday's vote to revamp the health care system, Bob Caulk contemplated the enormous task of extending health care coverage to the nation's millions of uninsured.
Caulk, chief executive officer of The Effort, spoke enthusiastically about expanding his nonprofit chain of clinics, based in midtown Sacramento, into more places.
"We're going to be ready, and other clinics are trying to gear up," Caulk said. "The question is: Where are you going to put all these people in a system that's not yet designed to accommodate them?"
(Excerpt) Read more at sacbee.com ...
I say we do what Levin mentioned last night.
Just start demanding any and all medical procedures we want, right now.
If health care is a right, then dammit, demand it. Right now! It’s my right, you can’t stop me from getting it.
No - not with thousands of doctors leaving. (Maybe they’ll mandate that doctors can’t quit!!)
HC system resources, human and otherwise, are already streched thin. This bill will stretch them even thinner and, on top of that, it mandates higher standards of care. I imagine it will take 3-6 months to obtain a primary care physician (it often takes 3 months as it is now). Furthermore, I imagine doctors will quickly reach the point where they can simply take no more patients. and they won’t. Then where will we be? back to the emergency room.
Probably more than that for me. I worked hard to keep my insurance premiums low. Mine are extremely low. $2000 deductible, no eye or tooth coverage, minimal perscription coverage, $25 copay. Today I had to get some antibiotics. The pharmacists couldn’t get my insurance card to register so I couldn’t get my very minimal prescription benefit. So I got tired of waiting and told her I’d just pay it myself.
Ya know what it cost me? about ten bucks. Why do we have insurance coverage for this crap anyway? I need antibiotics about once a year. All this time I thought I was getting half priced medicine and it turns out I was probably getting like 10% off.
Shucks I’ve been saying this for a long time. Few people explained it step by step but it works like this. The supply of medical care is limited. Now the demand increases to a theoretical unlimited. If you do not increase the supply, then the price has to rise. Since rising prices will not curtail the demand in any way, rationing of the supply is inevitable. So health care will have to cost more, and it will be rationed.
Now to stick to this thread topic - rationing the demand/influx of new patients. What will happen is that people who already have good doctors will keep good doctors. But good practices will lock up - by that I mean they will have too many patients to keep up and so they will be closed to new patients. So the new supply will overflow to the marginal doctors. Rural doctors now have a huge financial incentive to move to urban areas because the demand for services will be much higher. So in theory the rural areas will become more under-served as the financial incentive is to move to more populated areas.
I suggest that everyone get into the best doctors you can now. Go see a urologist, a proctologist, a neurologist, etc etc. Get in. Because once you are a patient they probaby wont drop you. But in a few years the practices of the best will fill up and you will be forced to see the lesser quality doctors (let us not delude ourselves to believe that all doctors are the same quality, they are not)
Yes you are right. see my post above.
I had a similar experience for antibiotic pre-meds for dental work. The cash price was less than my co-pay.
I rarely need a doctor. I was getting flight physicals for work on military aircraft for a while. The doctor suggested finding a “regular” doctor before I reach age 55 or I might have a serious problem finding one at all. Pocatello is chronically short of doctors. I should probably find a good doctor soon.
Yes he was probably referring to the glut of people going onto Medicare in the coming years filling up the rosters anyway. Medicare is going to be Massive and very soon. The baby boomers were the people agitating the most for the expansion of Medicare because they are the ones who are just short of it (1 to 5 years away from eligibility) and who are paying a fortune for health care now. They will be so happy when they only have to pay $200 a month for Part B/C insurance.
Ok so you got 12 years before Medicare. In the next 5 years how many tens of millions will go onto it? My point was merely that the swelling of Medicare ranks will mean the better doctors will suddenly have full practices. I’m sure many already do but as more and more get unlimited coverage the more the better doctors’ practices will fill up.
I am self employed I have 25 years before I am eligible for Medicare (assuming they do not raise the age by then) and I pay $650 a month for a PPO. I probably do not need the PPO but it does give me freedom to go to any doctor. I can only wonder how much it will go up over the next 25 years.
Caulk, chief executive officer of The Effort, spoke enthusiastically about expanding his nonprofit chain of clinics, based in midtown Sacramento, into more places.
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How does a nonprofit get enthusiastic about expanding more places.
How does that work?
Does a nonprofit have that much extra capital to act like a entrepreneur?
If it’s nonprofit, why get excited about taking on much more risk?
He already has a chain.
Sorry for a dumb question, I honestly don’t know and it puzzles me.
Has gov’t set the tax payer up to be picked clean by these ‘nonprofits’?
Likely. The government is going to stick their noses into how much of the premiums go to actual patient care. If under 80%, they intend to take action. The "executive" compensation of the insurance company will feel the same iron hand that the banking industry is getting now.
The non-profit clinics are likely to be putting more than 80% of money into actual patient care. It will be a direct pipeline from "the government". That doesn't mean the quality of the care is better because 80% of money is going to "patient care". That might be easily tweaked to optimise the cost of office visits and services to give the appearance of "care" vs "bookkeeping" or rent/utilities/insurance.
Is your employer paying 50%? If so you are probably getting a better deal than I considering you are about half again closer to Medicare eligibility than I, and you get vision and dental. Though I am not sure of the fine print. (I pay vision separately, though it is not a lot, and I do not have dental though dental is inadequate for me anyway (I do a lot of dental work annually). Then again it sounds like there are more people in your policy since yours is corporate and mine is self employed.
That question can not be answered taking into account today’s profession numbers. Lots will bail out. Doctors with ethics will bail out. Doctors with medical school bills to pay will bail out. Doctors who have high standards will bail out. Doctors who would never imagine becoming a government workers or unionized wage earners will bail out. This is going to be messy for the country.
To start with their has been no “newly insured”. There is only a mandate for people to buy insurance and to top it off, Seniors have had medicare cut. The bulk of the ridiculous POS bill doesn’t even go into effect until 2014. I bet a whole sh** load of stupid Bozo voters have already called Drs. and tried to get appointments for their “free” health care.
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