Posted on 07/05/2012 2:23:02 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Back at the at the dawn of ObamaCare in June 2009, speaking to the American Medical Association's annual meeting, President Obama said: "No matter how we reform health care, we will keep this promise: If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor. Period."
But will your doctor be able to keep you? Or will your doctor even want to keep you, rather than quit medicine?
For the longest time now, since day one of the Affordable Care Act, we have been having arguments over the mandate to purchase health-care insurance, requirements that insurance companies accept policyholders regardless of health, and price discrimination in insurance policies.
And of course, the Supreme Court—or something resembling the Supreme Court—outputted a decision on the tax status of the insurance-purchase mandate, the states' obligation to pay for Medicaid and as a bonus, the Commerce Clause.
Have you noticed what got lost in this historic rumble? Doctors. Remember them?
ObamaCare has been a war over the processing of insurance claims. It has been fought by institutional interests representing insurance, hospital and pharmaceutical firms. The doctor-patient relationship, or what used to be called "the practice of medicine," has sunk beneath these waves.
Barack Obama, a savvy pol, understood from the start that rationalizing payments claims through the maw of these private and public bureaucracies was not what the average person thinks of as "health care." To any normal person, health care means that when you or yours get really sick, the doctors and nurses who attend to you will push all else aside to give you medical help.
Thus, the constant Obama chorus that you can "keep your own doctor." No one knows better than Barack Obama that his law sends the nation's doctors on a voyage into an uncharted health-care world
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
I suppose they could hire health care provider "extenders".
(Any citizen of the Obamanation would surely be happy to have some doofus in a white coat who couldn't pass HS chemistry making life-or-death medical decision for him or her! After all, it's for the Greater Glory of the Obamanation!)
On a more serious note, this train wreck is going to be "interesting" to watch. I hope I don't get seriously sick before Obamacare explodes. And explode, it will.
Will they wear hoodies?
Come on. They can maybe force me to show up. They CAN’T force me actually practice medicine.
I’m in training to be a nurse practitioner — and all the liberal gobbeldy-gook in my textbooks about the ACA tell me that NP’s are going to SAVE THE DAY!! They have gathered all of their so-called evidenced-based research that NP’s provide care on the same level as docs in primary care, and thus, have pronounced it so.
The problem is, there are NOT enough of them to handle all the new patients that will be streaming in. Not by a longshot.
And I personally DO NOT want to be expected to take the place of a doc to save costs. I didn’t go to medical school, I have not been trained like an MD, and I do NOT want that incredible responsibility! NP’s can only do so much, before a person needs a qualified, trained physician. But you watch — this government is going to try to get by with it.
zactly. My Dr. bailed about 4 weeks ago. 22 yr relationship...poof !
Who knows. Maybe there will be a brown-shirt watching every
doctor.
I mean if the recent court opinion says we all have to buy
Government insurance, who’s to say a brown-shirt will be in
every doctors office?
Here’s what I want to know. If the AMA represents only 15% of the doctors, where the @#$ were the other 85% of them who were getting screwed when this went down? I heard NOTHING from doctors: not in the doc’s office, not on blogs, not in emails circulating. You would have thought doctors loved Obamacare. I believe if they had spoken out en masse, the public would have been much encouraged to fight even harder, and more voices would have joined the fray?
I remember the days before Tenncare in our state and the ones that came after. The then Dem governor New McWherter was screaming Medicaid was failing and broke. All it needed was a few cuts mainly to ones who should have never been on it to start with namely welfare Mom's having babies for checks.
One national private insurer began taking out full page adds in the Knoxville paper to the affect call our congressman and support Tenncare. But it didn't stop there. That same private insurer was the majority holder of new Tenncare patients. The company basically told the doctors if you don't sign on to Tenncare as a provided we will not give you our private insured business.
After Tenncare was pushed through with the help of the VP Al and first co-POTUS Hillary even more things showed up. The ones who were too have supposed to been managing Medicaid in Tennessee under Ned Ray suddenly were HMO CEO's.
Under Tenncare patients who were on Medicaid because as workers they had become disabled and could no longer worked were threatened with being dis-enrolled from Tenncare which was what the HMO wanted. But it got worse. Ones who were disabled after two years were also Medicare qualified. So Tenncare then decided to drop the traditional Medicaid payment to the doctors for service. They did this and by law the doctors could not bill the patients for the difference. The disabled had a very hard time obtaining doctors.
Under medicaid the program was overseen by the Tennessee Inspector Generals Office. If you became disabled and met the fiscal qualifications you were on Medicaid. That rule as well was cut from Tenncare. There was no accountability, no way a disabled person could reasonably resolve any issues, and much like OBAMACARE the Tennessee general Assembly was clueless as too how it ran. The end result under Governor Don Sundquist nearly bankrupted the state. Corruption in Tenncare was rampant and it wasn't the doctors but rather the HMO's running it.
The so called Editorial Board at www.knoxnews.com gives the impression that Obamacare is the best thing to ever happen in this nation. They like most Liberals refuse to do articles on the down side of Obamacare. The only doctor in Knoxville I've heard cheering is one who runs a government funded clinic.
May I ask you and your wife, then? What were you (and your colleagues) thinking when this bill was being written/ passed? Not to blame, right? But I watched and listened carefully to see who was on my side, hating this bill. I saw that the AMA was PRO Obamacare, but I did not observe medical folks in any field speaking out. I think it would help the public. We love our docs and we respect you. Speak out/ lend a voice/ tell us why YOU hate it. Make a big noise. Take out ads. Rent billboards. Let the Truth come out.
And don’t just bail and leave us with crummy third-world educated doctors, please. It might seem right to you, but what about We the Patients?
The Fed’s will try and have PA’s, and NP’s diagnose and treat, because of cost. It won’t be pretty.................
And extremely liberal group that has hijacked those that pay dues.
Ha! Doctors about the most intractable group you will ever come across.
More like Obama will push most out of business and replace them with compliant foreign medical grads.
My subspecialty organization, the American Gastroenterologic Association, are major donors to Harry Reid and Patty Murray. It’s like union dues being given away to pro union Democrats.
Already happened to me. Our ER went to an electronic medical record system which is horrible. The old paper system took about three minutes to record the medical record giving me ample time to contemplate the testing and treatments for my ER patients. Now it is all I can do to click all the data into the EMR and my mind is not where it should be.
Believe it or not one must be thinking to be a good physician.
Trying to be a physician in a busy ER with a horrible EMR system is like trying to land a Lear jet and text your mistress and talk to your wife at the same time, while having a drink of Bourbon, and smoking a fine Cuban cigar.
With all that going on something is going to fall through the cracks.
How about putting doctors and hospitals on Indian reservations. It’s a long way to International waters here in Iowa, but we do have Indian casinos. I wonder how far their sovereignty could be stretched.
And eventually have the same access to medicines and machines.
They can already diagnose and treat. In many states, they can do it independently. But they can’t do surgeries. They can’t diagnose complex conditions or manage a critical condition usually ... and in many states, they can’t prescribe or treat without being under the supervision of a physician.
Of course, they’re pushing to eliminate that supervision ...all over. A lot of NP’s want this ...and I think they are insane.
nobama care: Stay healthy or die.
Going into the field of medicine is really a bad decision now. Soon the only doctors will be the self-loathing and incompetent or both.
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