"Kick ass!"
Posted on 03/26/2010 10:49:15 AM PDT by reaganaut1
A quiet revolution is transforming how medical care is delivered in this country, and it has very little to do with the sweeping health care legislation that President Obama just signed into law.
But it could have a big impact on that law’s chances for success.
Traditionally, American medicine has been largely a cottage industry. Most doctors cared for patients in small, privately owned clinics — sometimes in rooms adjoining their homes.
But an increasing share of young physicians, burdened by medical school debts and seeking regular hours, are deciding against opening private practices. Instead, they are accepting salaries at hospitals and health systems. And a growing number of older doctors — facing rising costs and fearing they will not be able to recruit junior partners — are selling their practices and moving into salaried jobs, too.
As recently as 2005, more than two-thirds of medical practices were physician-owned — a share that had been relatively constant for many years, the Medical Group Management Association says. But within three years, that share dropped below 50 percent, and analysts say the slide has continued.
For patients, the transformation in medicine is a mixed blessing. Ideally, bigger health care organizations can provide better, more coordinated care. But the intimacy of longstanding doctor-patient relationships may be going the way of the house call.
...
There are political consequences, too. As doctors move from being employers to employees, their politics often take a leftward turn. This helps explain why the American Medical Association — long opposed to health care reforms — gave at least a tepid endorsement to Mr. Obama’s overhaul effort.
Gordon H. Smith, executive vice president of the Maine Medical Association, said that his organization had changed from being like a chamber of commerce to being like a union.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
It’s unprecedented and unexpected that a 30 yr trend continues?
The doctors in France are unionized....
I need to change my primary care physician and have approached three, no luck yet.
Thanks to Hugo Chavez Obama!
Obamacare will turn a gentle trend into an upset.
fyi..NOWHERES in the article are malpractice premiums or frivolous lawsuits mentioned..ya think??
Everything is going according to plan.
What was the reason you were given for non-acceptance?
This is precisely what the Obama administration wants to happen. They’re going to force doctors to quit (at least the very good ones). Just like their tax policies in the Health Bill will punish companies to the extent they will be forced to lay off people - and the Obama calculus on that is simple. He’s betting laid off employees now needing government assistance to survive will become his and the Democrats salvation in November. he’s betting on the idea the newly turned out masses of the jobless won’t bite the government hand that will be feeding it.
Every company ought to lay out ads saying that if the government took less of their earnings, they’d hire every released employee back.
Very interesting observation. It's also important to note that as doctors move from being employers to employees, they find themselves dealing with the same economic pressure from foreign labor that destroyed blue-collar jobs in so many industries here in the U.S.
The only difference is that workers in manufacturing jobs lost out when their jobs moved overseas. Workers in health care are losing out when the foreign labor moves right into their own offices and hospitals.
The next round of doctors will come out of Obama’s housing projects.
It's wonderful knowing that caring, personally caring physicians are still out there. I just hope they can survive what's coming. (I wouldn't be surprised if an underground medical industry grew up on just such a basis, if things continue as they are.)
Frivolous lawsuits, federal and state regulation, price controls on Medicare. Doctors are trained to be doctors, not businessmen, and increasingly, a doctor who runs their own office has to know the Byzantine maze of employer regulations that rule their business lives.
I can see why many of them say “screw it” and just go for the paycheck. Which by the way, isn’t a small paycheck.
Our family doc sold his practice to a big hospital. Office visits went from $56 to $99.
Nonsense. The AMA endorsed the health care debacle because it no longer represents physicians. It has multiply been posted on FR that AMA represents less than 15% of physicians. Conservative physicians are no longer drawn to the left wingnuts remaining in the AMA.
Physicians for the most part remain very conservative politically and socially. That a state medical association would suggest a statement like this is not surprising since they are tied to the AMA.
Also, nonsense. Foreign medical graduates are recruited to practices where American candidates can't be recruited or where demand outpaces supply for the American graduates.
Every company ought to lay out ads saying that if the government took less of their earnings, they’d hire every released employee back.
Great post, antonico.
The Republicans MUST take back the House and Senate in November. Our only hope right now is that at least they can vote to not fund ObamaCare...
"Kick ass!"
Damn! I say, starve the beast. Come next and future elections, close off the spigots and starve the beast. That’s the only hope we have, and stop pussyfooting around leftists. They are thugs, they have acted as thugs; we need a few thugs of our own to go toe to toe with them and shove them back.
Obama loves this—fewer independent small businessmen, more employees dependent on the government and unions to deal with their employers.
We have to kick every single Social Democrat out of every single office.
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