Posted on 03/04/2010 4:50:35 PM PST by Kaslin
Health Reform: Democrats promise their plan will improve care at lower cost while thinning the ranks of the uninsured. How will they do this with fewer doctors?
America's population is 305 million. If the Democrats are correct about the number of uninsured, roughly 260 million are covered by a health care plan. When the insured — and the uninsured who use the traditional method of paying out of pocket — are sick, they are treated by 800,000 physicians.
It would be foolish to believe that today's already stretched doctor-patient ratio will remain stable. In the near future we will have fewer doctors treating a growing population.
Physician search firm Merritt, Hawkins & Associates estimates that by 2020 we'll need 90,000 to 200,000 more doctors than we'll have then. As alarming as that estimate is, it could be low.
Last August, our IBD/TIPP Poll found that 45% of doctors would consider leaving their practices or taking early retirement if the Democrats' version of reform were to become law.
Last month, 26% of physicians responding to a Web poll on Sermo.com, which calls itself "the largest online physician community," said they had been forced to close, or were considering closing, their solo practices.
Reasons include "low and delayed reimbursements, problems with management companies, and a lack of business/practice management education," as well as high malpractice insurance costs.
(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...
Pharmacists should be given the right to prescribe basic medication. If I have the flu, I need flu medication not a doctor visit to get a note telling me I need flu medication.
Easy answer — How do you put 30,000,000 more patients into the system without more doctors.
Or is this how government health care rationing works.
This is so un-American in some many ways. It stinks of something they would do in Kenya.
We could use twice as many doctors as we have now.
Here it is...wait for it...wait for it...
They have no intention of maintaining the patient-to-physician ratio.
That ratio will skyrocket, intentionally so.
This is how they plan to save costs (even though they will admit no such thing, because that would give away the “secret”) by limiting access to both providers and imaging modalities.
This follows the pattern of EVERY OTHER SOCIALIZED MEDICINE implentation.
“I’m sorry, sir. The next appointment to see Dr. Jones is next year. And that MRI scan...well, the next opening for that is in October. Yes, I know that is eight months away, but things are so busy...”
Take Nyquil. There. I’ll bill you later.
Wait times for Manitoba, province in Canada with 1.2 million inhabitants. If you need emergency heart surgery, the average wait time is 4 days. Hope you don’t need it THAT bad because you may not be alive by the time they get around to you.
http://www.gov.mb.ca/health/waittime/surgical/heart.html
Obama will invite Muslim doctors to practice in America modeled on the Britsh approach.
Here is a better understanding of wait times, people. This link is from the Ontario wait list. Learn to live with it.
http://www.health.gov.on.ca/transformation/wait_times/public/wt_understanding.html#3
Seriously, use pharmacists and nurses as force multipliers and leave the doctors for more serious things.
BTTT!
Glad to see an article finally point this out to the pipe-dreaming liberal utopianists:
If they are going to have health care for all these additional bodies, WHERE ARE ALL THE DOCTORS, NURSES, HOSPITALS going to come from?
It takes 10 years from college thru intern residency to even add a new doctor in the mix. It takes time to build hospitals and train nurses.
How poorly-thought out are these plans by these children in charge of our country!!!
Want to reduce the cost of healthcare, add more doctors. Instead Obamacare strives to limit access (control demand).
Say goodbye to Dr. Kildare.
Say hello to Dr. Khalid. And his extended family.
You lower your sights to PAs and nurse practitioners.
‘Last August, our IBD/TIPP Poll found that 45% of doctors would consider leaving their practices or taking early retirement if the Democrats’ version of reform were to become law.’
My Doc already told be that he would close up shop and retire on my last visit. What a shame. He’s a great doctor and a great guy.
But pharmacists can advise over-the-counter treatments which are already available for flu.
With nobama-care possible...many doctors aged 50+ will be “early retiring”. They aren’t fools. It will be that staying well will be your best “insurance”. If you get sick tough luck. You die. Thanks to the marxist piug administration and their minions.
I know. Say, how about we pass a regulation that says all lawyers must be last in line for available physicians? There are a lot more lawyers than there are doctors. That would free up a lot of wait time.
there was a section in the original healthcare bill that devoted $10 billion for education with a preference given to disadvantaged and minority students towards doctor/dentist/nurse degrees. There was a really big section on nurse managers and language training and if you agreed to work in a disadvantaged area, part of your student loans would be forgiven.
....oh, wonder if they’d all be union workers?
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