Amen. However, as someone who has been doing this for a significant period of time, and thus who has likely put aside enough money to give you leverage, you are in a much better position to pick and choose how or if you practice. For many it's not going to be that simple.
I've talked to a lot of colleagues over the past year who are just hoping to get another 3-5 years under their belt and then walk away. For those just out of residency or fellowship, life isn't going to be that simple - especially considering the amount of debt many of them have.
Two of the biggest drivers of the move away from private practice are 1) hospitals getting more, sometimes more than twice more, for the same services / tests / procedures than a private office / clinic etc. receives, and 2) the costs and hassles involved in instituting and maintaining electronic medical records to comply with the federal rules on this.
The inevitable result of empowering hospitals and hospital corporations vs. private physicians is that there are more administrators, at all levels, and they make increasingly larger salaries than most of the docs who are actually seeing patients.
We all know that getting docs out of private practice and into hospitals is only step one. Once we are herded into one place, and thus easier to shoot, they will shoot us (figuratively, of course). Those increased payments hospitals receive will be decreased, and those working in administrative capacities will squeeze their physician employees in order to maintain their own lifestyles and incomes.
The inevitable result? Demoralization and demotivation. Guess what follows and what the impact will be on the patients.
You pretty much just described the process by which corporate America, and our education system, are being strangled to death by administrative bloat.
See above