Simple... medicaid office visit pays 42$ Medicare did pay $54 (now down 21% on all fees). The obamma plan will continue those cuts. Unlike walmart, doctors office do not do better by increasing volume with lower prices. It means we have to see more people in the same 8-5 time or expand hours (and thus over head) to make the same amount of money.
Even if that is in the final package of Bills that pass into law (far from certain right now)I doubt if it would result in the destruction of US society in general.
We have millions of uninsured in this country. If Congress somehow manages to arrange insurance for some of these people, the number of doctors won't magically increase, so doctors will have to work harder, but what is the alternative? When we left it up to the insurance companies to solve the problem in 1993, we went from 27 million without insurance to over 40 million uninsured.
I agree that doctor's jobs are going to get tougher, but people need to see a doctor once in a while. Again, what is the alternative? No one wants a real takeover of medicine, as they have in Europe, do they?
Dude, the cuts to doctors are already happening with medicare and medicaid. We can't afford the care we have, much less expanding it. heck, we aren't that many years out form medicare and medicaid costs exceeding tax revenue if their rates are left unchanged.
Part of the answer is that you can't be graduating doctors with $150k of debt and high overhead costs if you expect them to work for less.. I'd like to see some subsidizing of making new doctors. The scale is relatively small, so the cost is cheap, and even if doctors going forward don't make as much, it'll still be a well paying job that expands the tax base nicely without raising taxes. If your average doctor practices for at least 15 years and pays income taxes, you can probably turn a profit on the outlay of tax funds.
You can tell alot about someones views when they agree with steamed...
Oh, My God you mean the Doctor is going to have to return his Ferrari to the Dealership and just drive a Cadillac!
Maybe the unsatisfied ones can go to Costa Rico and work on Rush!
Thanks for the insult loser. I am glad that your piece of crap union job got you health insurance. Remember your feelings next time you have to wait in a doctor's office. Most PCPs now see 35 patients a day to earn the same as they did 7 years ago when they saw 28. Mean while loan burden is an average of 235000 out of school. One of the biggest ways the obama plan will be funded is further medicare cuts. I doubt you have even read it. This translates into even more patients a day to make the same money to pay off even bigger loans. That means less time with wife and family, but hey all doctors are millionares right? It's patients like you that disgust me. You treat doctors like butlers because your insurance pays them so much to be your lackey.
I was at a medical convention recently, and some of the docs felt the same way as you, but the medical associations are still working to push back on the proposed Medicare cuts, which are extreme for some specialties.
The work load that most doctors have is already crushing and is probably going to get worse in the future. There are some aspects of being a physician that are enticing, but I have always considered it a well paying, but crappy job.
I suspect that this stuff will work itself out. Physicians have a lot of political clout and the public wants to see doctors respected and dealt with fairly.
That having been said, what is wrong with people getting health care insurance through their employer, either as a negotiated perk or as part of an employment package? If your answer has something to do with those who try to abuse the system, they have that in every kind of health care provider plan. Back in the day of closed HMOs, there were people who were at the doctor every single day with this and that problem. They probably needed either psychiatric help or to be restricted to only so many visits.
The abusers are a small minority, and better ways of dealing with them should be part of the plan.
But regardless of what happens with Obama's reform, doctors are going to get some level of squeezing in the future. Even if we do a replay of 1993 and just let the insurance lobby have their way, the problems which exist now aren't going to go away. There are real problems and we can either decide to deal with them, or we can ignore them as we have been doing. Either way, I think your job is going to get tougher.
Good luck to you.
That lacked words like "loser" "piece of crap" "you disgust me".. Eh, i give it a B (A for content but you lost points for no drivil or insults.)
While I was growing up, my Dad busted his ass 12 hours a day as an owner/operator of an Autobody shop just to keep us fed and clothed and driving old cars! Our GP drove to work in his Sports car! GM bought my body a piece at a time over a 37 year period, now that I am used up, Yes I have health Insurance, thanks to the Federal Government stepping in, or I would be in the same boat as the Steel workers are after The Reagan Administration and First Bush Adminstration, left them to rot!
Gramps
Yeah, well I am still a bit fuzzy on how getting millions of uninsured Americans covered is going to result in the "destruction of US society."
Maybe in steamed's world it is bad for people to be healthier, or maybe he is just shilling for the health insurance industry which wants to be as unregulated as Bernie Madoff was.