Posted on 11/03/2013 1:54:28 PM PST by markomalley
Kathleen Murphy, a Democrat who is running for the House of Delegates against Republican incumbent Barbara Comstock, told a forum in Great Falls on Saturday that doctors should be forced to accept Medicare and Medicaid patients:
FYI last night at the Great Falls Grange debate, Democrat delegate candidate Kathleen Murphy said that since many doctors are not accepting medicaid and medicare patients, she advocates making it a legal requirement for those people to be accepted.
She did not recognize that the payments are inadequate to cover the doctors' costs. She also did not recognize there is a shortage of over 45,000 physicians now and that it is forecast to be 90,000 in a few years.
Democrats appear to want to make physicians slaves of the state, but Democrats don't admit they would just drive more doctors out of practice into retirement and other occupations. The Obamacare law and regulations are causing millions of people to lose their health insurance, drop many doctors and hospitals. The HHS internal forecast is 93 million Americans would lose their health insurance due to the Obamacare law and rules about adequacy of insurance.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
Could Virginia become a state with no doctors?
I wonder how that would change, though, if they fail to pass the annual "doc fix" and let reimbursement rates drop by 32% (as they would if a "doc fix" is not put in place by January).
Getting rid of the "doc fix" was one of the premises that were used to make the numbers work out for Obamacare.
The Dimocratic party at many levels is still tied to the pre-industrial revolution world view.
If they are stupid enough to go through with this farce then Virginia could become the first state with no doctors. Medical skills are extremely portable. Force doctors to do things that aren’t in their best interests and you will see such a flight of medical personnel (doctors and nurses) that Virginia will be unable to legally open a single clinic much less a major trauma hospital.
I think I should be entitled to free legal care.
You are dangerous and NOT a newbie. Calm down... IOW eff off! Very dangerous!
Ayn’s first shot went thru the bullseye, and thru *that* hole, went her remaining shots.
As the Obama Administration and its advocates, are determined to make doctors into being enemies of the leftists’ Thought Police State.
So I imagine the Goon Squads will visit the State Board Directors and ensure they deny those docs from Red states. Oops - I meant Blue.
OK can we FLIP THE COLORS and call the commies by their real color - RED.
Its silly to call patriots Red. Thanks!
Basically you’re right. It really depends on what types of procedures you do, how many patients you see and how efficient you are. In some cases, you simply cannot offer certain treatment to patients because the reimbursement per hour is too low. That’s the problem with government fiat pricing; in some cases, the fee is too low,and other times it’s too high. But like a broken clock, it’s right twice a day.
But as reimbursement for providers trends downward, the tipping point at which a service cannot be provided will become commonplace to a point where it is impossible to make a profit. A patient cannot be a cost center unless providers are paid a fixed amount (capitation) and the incentive is to deny care. This is where 0-care seems to be headed. Administrators and dubious doctors will become experts in providing just enough care to avoid a patient lawsuit. And if doctors are eventually employed by the state or Feds, there will be no lawsuits.
As far as co-pays and deductibles are concerned, more and more, they will have to be paid in full at the point of service, because as you have correctly noted, the cost to collect this money eats into the margin.
The market system would go a long way in determining fair pricing and physicians would have an incentive to provide treatments with the greatest value as determined by the patient.
If McAuliffe is elected.
Not a problem for the political class. There are whores in every profession, medicine included. With the deep pockets of the taxpayer at their disposal, the despots will meet the necessary price of the medical whores. Count on it.
If you look at the Canadian commenters on some of these articles, they say they don't want their doctors to make a lot of money because they want to only have doctors who "really care" about them, not ones who are just trying to "get rich." Of course we hear the same thing here about insurance companies, how they're useless because all they do is get rich off of people's medical problems. Underpinning all of this is a fundamental misunderstanding of how and why capitalism works. You in essence have to end up talking to liberals and LOFO voters as if they are kindergarteners, but that is the level at which their education on capitalism stands these days.
If you don't have to pay for something yourself, you don't value or appreciate it. Some places can say they'll charge you anyway if you don't show up, but why would a Medicaid patient care when they're not paying anything towards the bill either way?
HIPAA was passed in 1996.
Maybe if you take a lot of them you can account for the ones that aren't going to show up using the law of large numbers. If you just take 1 a day you can't risk that they won't show up by scheduling someone else for the same time. But if you take 6 a day you can schedule 8, knowing that generally 25% won't show up.
Medicaid patients once made up more than 40 percent of Florence Pediatric Dentistrys client list, but the practice no longer accepts Medicaid because those patients frequently missed appointments and because the Medicaid agency reimbursed the office poorly for its services, Elvington said.
http://www.postandcourier.com/article/20130616/PC16/130619545
If they can force bakeries run by Christians to bake wedding cakes for homos, they can force doctors to treat everyone/anyone.
Don't let them visit, either.
Kathleen Murphy is a lawyer. Do you expect a lawyer to care about anything but fees and power?
You know—that’s the first really good idea I’ve heard in a long time. Gambling and medical care on the reservation—Cherokee, North Carolina.
Hey Upchuck,
I’m not a doctor, but my wife and I just bought a house in SC. We’re looking forward to moving out of the Peoples Republic of Illinois real soon. I may recommend the same to my doctor.
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