Posted on 04/02/2016 6:36:53 AM PDT by george76
Primary-care shortage is growing especially acute in rural areas and in parts of some cities.
The doctor is disappearing in America.
And by most projections, it’s only going to get worse — the U.S. could lose as many as 1 million doctors by 2025, according to a Association of American Medical Colleges report.
Primary-care physicians will account for as much as one-third of that shortage, meaning the doctor you likely interact with most often is also becoming much more difficult to see.
Tasked with checkups and referring more complicated health problems to specialists, these doctors have the most consistent contact with a patient. But 65 million people live in what’s “essentially a primary-care desert,” said Phil Miller of the physician search firm Merritt Hawkins.
Without those doctors, our medical system is “putting out forest fires — just treating the patients when they get really sick,” said Dr. Richard Olds, the chief executive officer of the Caribbean medical school St. George’s University, who is attempting to use his institution’s resources to help alleviate the shortage.
Dr. Ramanathan Raju, CEO of public hospital system NYC Health + Hospitals, goes even further, saying the U.S. lacks a basic primary-care system. “I think we really killed primary care in this country,” said Raju. “It needs to be addressed yesterday.”
(Excerpt) Read more at marketwatch.com ...
So we shouldn’t have to pay so much for the medical care we DO get....right? right? Hello?
“I quit when medicine was placed under State control, some years ago,” said Dr. Hendricks. “Do you know what it takes to perform a brain operation? Do you know the kind of skill it demands, and the years of passionate, merciless, excruciating devotion that go to acquire that skill? That was what I would not place at the disposal of men whose sole qualification to rule me was their capacity to spout the fraudulent generalities that got them elected to the privilege of enforcing their wishes at the point of a gun. I would not let them dictate the purpose for which my years of study had been spent, or the conditions of my work, or my choice of patients, or the amount of my reward. I observed that in all the discussions that preceded the enslavement of medicine, men discussed everything — except the desires of the doctors. Men considered only the ‘welfare’ of the patients, with no thought for those who were to provide it. That a doctor should have any right, desire or choice in the matter was regarded as irrelevant selfishness; his is not to choose, they said, only ‘to serve.’ That a man who’s willing to work under compulsion is too dangerous a brute to entrust with a job in the stockyards never occurred to those who proposed to help the sick by making life impossible for the healthy. I have often wondered at the smugness with which people assert their right to enslave me, to control my work, to force my will, to violate my conscience, to stifle my mind — yet what is it that they expect to depend on, when they lie on an operating table under my hands?” -Ayn Rand
What a concept. Take care of being well on your own, and see a doctor when you're sick.
The perfect democrat solution to any problem is to simply change the meaning of a few words and bingo, no problem.
“Take care of being well on your own”
I’m not sure we can entrust folks to take care of themselves in this age of people not being entrusted to feed themselves, house themselves, or do any of the other basic things in life, because someone of a particular race might have a different outcome of someone else of another particular race.
yes, better let government dictate this.....
I don’t disagree with your premise, however, I would wager the wait time for see a physician (internal medicine) will be tantamount to wait time in the UK.
I would further wager the wait time for a specialist will be off the charts.
If you are even referred to a specialist. Too many ‘specialist referrals’ in a month and the primary care doc will get fined.
And one thing Obama didn’t do was provide for the education of new doctors. You know, like the Military service Academies. You go to school on the taxpayer’s money and you have to work for X amount of years to pay back. He expects medical students to pay for their own educations and then work for peanuts, even though they have to pay back those massive medical college loans.
And don’t forget Hillarycare. The student is told where he can go to school, what he specializes in and where he has to practice. Who will sign up for THIS??
“I quit when medicine was placed under State control, some years ago,” said Dr. Hendricks...
How very prescient! It absolutely be an excerpt from the article!
I shared with DH that we are headed towards critical mass in this country because the burden on the rest of the country of having to prop up and take care of the other half cannot go on indefinitely without something seriously major giving way...IMHO.
...but I thought obamacare would solve “everything”??? I can’t believe the politicians and the government would lie to me.
Gee we couldn't make tuition free for the serious American students studying STEM now could we? No nothing smart like that....
A shame that all of those illegal aliens abusing our healthcare system won’t get treatment on my dime because of this!
I’m all broken up about it....
Can’t help but wonder if some “survival of the fittest” might save civilization.
The article starts with a lie; all MD’s have a “starting salary “ of $40-50,000 per year for which they work 6-7 days per week , 80 + hours per week, on a 3-5 year contract, potentially another 2 for super-specialists, unless at a certain level of competence during that long spell, they “moon-light, “ i.e. add to their hours per week by contracting on a per diem basis. During that time their entire med school debt accumulates interest. Over the past 20 years, the rate of inflation paid to primary care doctors has been less than 1% per year, while the need for office staff and computer systems to try to meet government regulation has burgeoned, as has the cost of mal-practice insurance. Ezekiel, of the criminal family Emmanuel, prime architect of Obamacare has the solution to the primary care deficit, namely that the primary care end of the medical spectrum, will be staffed by nurse practitioners and physicians assistants, undoubtedly extremely competent in most cases, but with less than half the academic training and a far less extensive clinical experience as well(e.g. MD interns and residents in hospital wards have prescribing authority on the basis of their M.D. from day 1; nurse practitioners would not have that prescribing authority even if their ward experience were any thing like the M.D.’s (or D.O.’s)). AI and robots may be the answer, in which case, a whole generation of young people are accumulating a life time of debt pursuing education with little prospect of paying it off.
What amazes me is the amount of people who haven’t arrived there yet.
Primary-care doctors “going concierge” is a problem. If you can’t afford the $2,000 to sign up (in Florida it’s $7,000) you are left without a doctor, even one you have been seeing for decades who knows all about you.
It’s worth a try. Clearly letting the inmates run the asylum isn’t working.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.