I’ll be the devil’s advocate.......
Why should the practice of medicine be different than other businesses? Why is a doctor different from say an appliance store or mom and pop hardware store?
Why is a doctor not subject to economies of business scale like the drug store business?
The amalgamation of several doctors under one large roof that may or may not include family practitioners and specialists that are open 7 days a week is Walgreens or Walmart or Best Buy or Lowes.
Obamacare did not start the trend to group practices.
I am not opposed to economies of scale, aggregating many specialties, etc. under one convenient roof. However, what Obama and his PooCaCa law is doing is to effectively remove the ability of choice of care.
By imposing ridiculous conditions, onerous paperwork, tracking and insurance requirements, he is forcing the practice of medicine into a bureaucracy regimen that is historically ineffective and overly bloated.
Further, by making single doctor practice impractical, he is taking the doctor-patient relationship to one that isn't based on personal interaction and knowledge anymore. The new regime will be a nondescript professional (probably from some third world medical school) operating an assembly line examination where he knows nothing about the patient save what some bureaucrat allows him/her to see regarding the medical records.
Medicine is not a free market. Prices are set by Medicare and commercial insurance is typically set as percentage over Medicare.
So, you may ask, why can’t single and small practices compete if prices are the same? The answer is that hospitals receive higher payments for their services than doctors in offices. Facility charges for the identical procedure are higher than ambulatory surgery centers which are higher than procedures performed in the doctor’s offices. Hospitals can also charge itemized “pass through” charges that doctors cannot; that’s why you will see a $10 charge for an aspirin in the hopsital. Another big advantage is that many if not most hospitals are non-profits which gives them significant tax advantages.
It’s like this in many other business sectors. The fact is that we have a fascist economy that favors those that have the resources to influence lawmakers.
True healthcare is not a commodity business. Each person's needs are unique. The history and insight gained over a long term doctor/patient relationship cannot be replaced by a computer or assembly line medicine.
because it’s forced by the government that lied to us.