Examiner Editorial: Obamacare will end up forcing doctors to take patients

The Washington Examiner ^ | December 6, 2013

[2ndDivisionVet]

Just as cars can’t go anywhere without drivers and employees can’t work without bosses, health care doesn’t happen when there are no doctors around. And when an estimated 70 percent of the doctors in the nation’s deepest-blue state are rebelling against Obamacare, the Affordable Care Act is forcing a critical decision: America will have to junk Obamacare and go back to square one on health insurance reform, or trash the last vestige of private health care in this country by forcing doctors to do the government’s bidding.

The rebellion among California physicians was detailed earlier this week by Washington Examiner senior investigative reporter Richard Pollock. “Independent insurance brokers who work with both insurance companies and doctor networks estimate that about 70 percent of California's 104,000 licensed doctors are boycotting the exchange,” Pollock wrote. The president and speaker of the legislative body of the California Medical Association -- the Golden State chapter of the Obamacare-endorsing American Medical Association -- both confirmed to Pollock that the rebellion is widespread and intensely felt.

California's doctor rebellion isn't unique. Pollock previously reported comparable situations at 15 other locations around the country. Not only are thousands of doctors saying no to Obamacare, so are major health insurance providers, including United Healthcare, Aetna and Cigna, as well as some of the nation's most famous hospitals....

[piytar]

Yeah, and how exactly do you FORCE doctors to provide care? They can simply not show up to work. Doctors are generally very intelligent — they’ll find other ways to make a living.

By the way, American Medical Association “leaders,” how is your support for Obamacare working out for you, morons?

[cajungirl]

we did not let the ama speak for us, the government acted as if they were the voice of medicine. the AMA was bought and paid for a long time ago. Most of us were working so hard we didn’t pay attention. And being demonized for so long by so many, on this site as well, has demoralized doctors.

[piytar]

Problem with that is you very quickly run out of doctors. And even the wannabe dictators sometimes get sick.

Actually, we are going to run out of doctors very soon anyway.

Thanks, low information voters! Anyone who voted for Obama DESERVES the pain, misery, death, and frankly Hell that is coming...

[cajungirl]

Tennessee mandates seeing medicaid pts as a condition of licensure last time I discussed this with a doc from Tennessee.

[piytar]

Demonize doctors? Yeah, I’ve seen some idiots even here do that. But they are, as I said, idiots.

Good doctors are a treasure. Too bad mine retired. Thanks again, low information voters who elected obama, you scumbags.

[aruanan]

That will decrease the supply of doctors and will kill and cripple Americans, but it may be a politically viable strategy if the MSM pumps out enough pro-Obamacare propaganda. And they will.

It won't be a politically viable strategy. Why? Because Barry's biggest biggest supporters who aren't black or hard left, the so-called millennials, have figured out that Barry was looking at them, not as though they were the object of his undying affection, but as a wolf looks at a lamb. He has lost them. And on top of that, there are millions of insurance policy holders who have lost their insurance and know that it's because of Obamacare. The one group realizes it's the target for robbery. The second group realizes that it has been mugged. Neither group is going to embrace the health care felon as their savior.

And Obama is looked at more and more and more unfavorably in spite of everything the press has tried to do to deflect attention from him. He may have had the idea that when his Cloward-Piven scheme starts to collapse the system everyone will turn to him and ask him to step in and save them. Lefty-Boy is going to have a really rude awakening when his political fantasies wake him into a nightmare reality. He won't be able to talk his way out of it and he won't be able to muster the force necessary to shut down a nation of this size. This isn't Cuba or Venezuela or Cambodia. His armed government agency thugs will be insufficient. And the number of folks in the government that will be able to use the government to counteract any attempted takeover by him using government will surprise and dismay him and his tiny band when reality comes up hard against leftist theory.

[Slings and Arrows]

Partially, but that may also be a case of the government having the thugs’ backs. Far fewer knockout gamer in places where concealed carry is common.

[TChad]

The stick will be IRS audits, blacklisting at hospitals, and threatening to jerk their license to practice medicine.

The feds don't control licensing for medical practice. That is handled by the individual states. It would however be easy for the feds to invalidate a physician's DEA number so he or she could no longer write prescriptions.

[TChad]

I hope and pray that you are right. I lost a lot of faith in American voters after the last election.

We'll see.

[ToastedHead]

I wonder if that came out of the TennCare mess. (Not too familiar with that fun government experiment, just remember hearing about it.)

[cajungirl]

I think it was tencare

[mowowie]

[LibWhacker]

Tell me about it. After my primary care physician moved on, the huge medical group we’re in tried to move me over to a Paki. The poor guy actually seemed like a nice guy and was trying to sell me on staying with him, but there is no way on God’s green Earth I could possibly accept a primary care doc who had been taught since infancy to hate non-Muslims, and I requested a different doc ASAP.

[mowowie]

Why do we even need doctors nowadays?
Isn’t there an app for that?

[Lazamataz]

Not a moment too soon of you ask me. I’m not “buying” anything their selling. I’m not going to pay any fines, either. This ****” stops now. F*** all of them.

I said this exact thing today.

[LibWhacker]

Exactly, any attempt to actually force doctors to work for a loss would be nothing less than an attempt to kill them outright. You cannot force people into such a corner unless you are intent on bloodshed. I only wish rats were that stupid.

[VideoDoctor]

I’m not “buying” anything their selling. I’m not going to pay any fines, either. This ****” stops now. F*** all of them.

The attitude that we must ALL adopt to STOP this silly $hit sooner rather than later.

[kelly4c]

Most of us owe our lives to a doctor. Seriously, without their care a lot of us over the course of our lifetimes would have succumbed to something without intervention. But yeah, I believe that if you are born with the talent and ambition & put in all that time and money on schooling with follow up studies the rest of your careered life to keep up with the changes in science and medicine you deserve to live well, and be in control of the choices you make in regards to your practice. PS I do wish they still made house calls:)

[poobear]

My God, glad I had 3 major surgeries in the last 3 years. All well now

[Kozak]

It’s a GOOD thing Comrade:

http://healthland.time.com/2013/08/07/need-to-see-the-doctor-you-may-have-company-on-your-next-visit/