Posted on 11/03/2014 4:09:53 PM PST by Kaslin
Which serves them right
“Why hasnt Obama just forced these doctors to accept Obamacare patients or threaten to take away their medical licenses?”
Medical licenses are issued by states, so it wouldn’t prevent doctors from practicing on a cash only basis or accepting regular commercial patients. There are some commie states such as MA, CA, NY MD etc that could take a hard line against doctors, but that would only hasten the exit of even more physicians to the liberty minded states. The Feds, via CMS (Medicare) could force doctors to sign up for and accept 0-care patients or forfeit Medicare. However, such a move could result in doctors dropping Medicare as well. I suppose the one thing that the Feds could do would be to force states to pass laws forcing doctors to take the 0-care patients (and Medicare, Medicaid for that matter), but I’d imagine that there would be quite a stir with that one because 0bama would have to do an EO or 0bama would have HHS just create the rule. Even SCOTUS has ruled that the Feds cannot force states to set up exchanges with the threat of withdrawing Medicaid money, and that was part of the 0-care law.
Even if doctors agreed to take 0-care patients, it is unclear how much elective care they would actually receive. All hospital organizations recognize that after 30 days, an 0-care patient can stopping their premiums, but still be considered covered by the insurance company. Most of these bronze plans have high deductibles because that’s all lower middle income people can afford. This makes them big credit risks, and most hospitals and clinics will demand payment up front at least to cover expenses with a small margin.
That leaves the ER to take up the slack when the poorer 0-care patients really need treatment. In other instances, the 0-care patients will need to pay cash at non accepting providers.
Good explanation.
Many of the doctors in our area have remained within the networks but their staff just schedules new patients for an appointment some four to six weeks in the future. When that time arrives they call the new patients and say they have to reschedule due to a conflict with the doctor’s schedule. Most of the patient have either gotten well on their own, found someone else to see them, died or they no longer want the appointment. Lots of emergency clinics seem to be popping up all over the place staffed by nurses. The face of medicine has changed.
And not for the better!
I don’t think so. While there will be a share of quislings, many will simply practice privately.
There is no way to force them to accept zerocare.
They simply dismantle their present organizations and create new ones.
States may have more power over doctors via licensing and so forth. So maybe the feds threaten the states.
Some all-in state like CA willmostlikely try it...then the dr.s just leave.
I don’t believe obama would take on 950,000 physicians. He has no standing in issuance or recession of medical licenses.
“Is this an example of the Law of Unintended Consequences?”
No, this EXACTLY what was intended.
True
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.