By
John Goodman Filed under
New Health Care Law on December 10, 2010 with
8 comments
A survey of U.S. physicians:
- 60% said health reform will compel them to close or significantly restrict their practices to certain categories of patients.
- Of the above, 93% said they will be forced to close or significantly restrict their practices to Medicaid patients, while 87% said they would be forced to close or significantly restrict their practices to Medicare patients.
- While over half of physicians said health reform will cause patient volumes in their practices to increase, 69% said they no longer have the time or resources to see additional patients in their practices while still maintaining quality of care.
The Affordable Care Act will increase the number of people with health coverage while doing nothing to increase supply of physicians. Half of the newly insured will be enrolled in Medicaid. If cuts are allowed to go through, the ACA will reduce physician fees. Simple economics suggests doctors will have plenty of new demand and they will pick and choose their patients from amoung the ones that pay the best.
I thought Obama’s plan was for us to psych up for the big health care windfall, not to mentally prepare ourselves for disaster. What went wrong?
Good thoughts. There is an op ed piece in the sunday New York Times by Tyler Cowen, saying essentially the same thing.
We are going to become like Canada,
With 32 to 34 million newly insured people and no new medical personnel, how could there not be a huge rationing problem? And when concierge doctors reduce there practice size, say, from 2,500 patient to 500 patients, the problem will only get worse.
Help! I’m not ready. Not ready. Not ready.
I service rural/inner city medical/dental clinics in California and I will tell you they are EXPANDING (both facilities and staff) getting ready for the increased patients they will see. It will be the clinics that will absorb these newly insured people not the single practice, or concierge doctor. Those doctors can treat these new patients but probably will choose not to due to low reimbursements. This in and of itself is no reason to think PPACA will not work. It just may not work for you personally.
Erik,
Many of the inner city/rural clinics are expanding because they get higher reimbursement for treating Medicaid and Medicare patients than private physicians do. They enjoy substantial malpractice protection. They have their buildings and equipment purchased with taxpayer dollars. They also got a big slice of pork in the ObamaCare bill.
It is not clear that they provide either higher quality care or care at a lower cost.