Posted on 10/14/2013 4:49:13 AM PDT by Kaslin
A question for the American Medical Association: What were you thinking?
Despite the national news media’s near-complete refusal to report it, the news was no less real. United Healthcare, a managed care health services company based in Minnesota, is underway with laying-off “thousands” of physicians in Connecticut.
The reason? The company won’t dare say this, but they had to do something to stave-off their decline in revenues, a phenomenon brought about by – you guessed it – the new federal healthcare law, AKA “Obamacare.”
President Obama once famously promised “if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor,” but that promise is not being kept for Medicare patients in Connecticut. The physicians who are losing their employment are specifically assigned to treat Medicare benefits’ recipients there. And this may be only the beginning of Medicare patients “losing their doctor,” because the Obamacare law reduces funding for the elderly and disabled recipients of Medicare benefits, just as it takes-on the burden of funding new websites, databases, subsidies for those who will receive health insurance “for free,” and lots and lots of new federal “administrators.”
The sad truth, though, is that the association that purports to represent the entire medical profession – the “AMA” – actually supported Obamacare for a time, before they officially and viscerally opposed it. And ironically, they opposed Medicare before they officially and viscerally supported it. Without any particular commitments to economic principles and with a seemingly naïve understanding of public policy, the AMA has welcomed the government’s encroaching control over their profession.
It started in the early 1960’s when the idea of Medicare was first proposed. The AMA warned their members that the government’s “intrusion” in to their profession could disrupt doctor-patient relationships, and lobbied Congress against passage of the Medicare legislation.
But soon after the implementation of Medicare, the AMA recognized the benefits of the government’s steady stream of revenues and began to support it. And for most of the last half-century or so the AMA has aggressively lobbied Congress against any and all proposed Medicare funding reductions.
In 2009 when Obamacare was originally proposed, the association opposed the idea. By 2010, however, amid social pressure and promises of good times for physicians from the administration, the AMA decided that they sort of agreed to the Obamacare “in principle,” and refused to oppose it. Then in 2012, after Obamacare had become law and a couple of months before the November presidential election, the AMA came out in full-force opposing Obamacare while urging its members to vote for Mitt Romney.
Too little, too late, AMA. As President Thomas Jefferson once said, “a government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take away everything you have,” and the results of the AMA’s foolish flirtation with the government’s redistribution of economic resources illustrates this profound truth vividly.
As if this folly isn’t sufficiently tragic, consider this: as featured on the Fox Newschannel, a private corporation called “Benefits Coordinators” is on the prowl for prospective staffers to educate government employees on how to utilize their health insurance benefits. Apparently the health benefits plans that the federal government offers its employees is so circuitous and confusing that the government “had to” hire a private corporation to educate the recipients on how to use the benefits.
The company advertises earnings of “$120,00 to $180,000 a year” for this kind of work. And the expansion of the administrators’ roster is happening in the same week as the reduction of the physicians’ list.
Our government is well on its way to producing less healthcare and more bureaucratic red tape, all the while the cost of healthcare rises for those who actually pay for it. Will Americans ever wake up to the most basic principles of economic and public policy issues? Or will we continue to childishly continue to believe in the magical promises of politicians?
“Exchanges” in GA are “firing” a ton of docs and some of the more popular hospitals around too. I can hardly wait to hear the whining commence.
I question the accuracy of the article. UHC is not laying off doctors, UHC is not renewing previous provider contracts, at least not until closer to the December 15 signup deadline. Both doctors and hospitals are involved in the process.
Those being laid off are actually the currently insured.
They have the choice of keeping their doctor and finding a new insurer or keeping their insurer and finding a new doctor. If there is no other insurer, it is because others too have withdrawn.
You make a point but it is not on target. At present, the future is quite fluid. It is obvious that there is going to be serious, perhaps mortal, trouble with Obamacare. There is a possibility, though not great, that it would be defunded or changed in some major manner in the immediate present.
When contracts are to be made for the next year prior to the new enrollment period deadline and the very nature of those contracts uncertain, prudence dictates patience to see how it will fall out during the first 60 days of the enrollment window.
I am in this very dilemma at present. UHC has settled with a major hospital group and hopefully will settle with my doctor’s group prior to December 15. This happened in 2011 and the agreement came 7 days before the deadline.
IIRC the Veterans Organizations did a similar thing under Clinton. Despite his and Hillary showing of disrespect for the individual military and downsizing the organizations, the Veteran Organizations refused to speak out against them because they were looking for monetary enhancements.
I did not renew my American Legion membership for that reason.
Following the Clinton lead, Obama has placed his lackey’s charge of the in the military.
Yes, it does make feel better to complain.
Fascism always sounds great to the rope makers when the government promises to buy up all they can make. But they fail to realize they’re always the first ones that get hung when they try to actually collect from their fees from the government.
I heard that is SPECIFICALLY not allowed in the Obamacare bill.,
The first wife or child of a Congress person that dies under all this mess will sure get headlines.
yeah, but you know about what scarcity does to services in high demand...
high demand...
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Demand is certainly a consideration be it high or low.
We don’t the real numbers in this situation.
Smart for whom? The triage doctors?
Isn't UHC wholly-owned by AARP? Who traitorously endorsed Obamacare in 2009, on the eve of its passage, in a well-greased-up decision Obama "helped" them with?
Neither do I but—here’s a number worth thinking about: 660,000 docs in US approx and 250,000 are over 55. That’s more than a third of the total number.
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