Is the Obama Administration Reading this Blog?
Alarmed by a shortage of primary care doctors, Obama administration officials are recruiting a team of “mystery shoppers” to pose as patients, call doctors’ offices and request appointments to see how difficult it is for people to get care when they need it.
I guess if they welcomed home the prodigal son, we should be charitable about this.
Read more on the Obama administration going undercover to address the “critical public policy problem.”
This makes me wonder why the Obama administration believes demonstrated behavior will be much different than what has already been reported and the information they could gather by directly working with providers. It seems to indicate distrust between the White House and providers.
There has been talk among left-of-center public health advocates of making physician licensure conditional on treating patients enrolled in public coverage.
Rest assured that the Administration will not publish its findings. In Canada, the Fraser Institute, a private non-profit organization had to survey physicians for waiting times because the provincial governments denied that there was a problem.
Intially, the political class refused to consider the Fraser Institute’s findings, which are now well-known not only in Canada but worldwide as describing the harm inflicted on patients’ access to care through government monopoly.
Eventually, the governments admitted that queuing was a problem, but their agents propogated the idea that waiting for care was not always bad, and sometimes even good.
A few years ago, provincial governments finally admitted their was a problem, and began to meausure waiting times themselves. They’ve yet to free Canadians from the grip of government dominance.
I think John Graham is right. Whatever they find out, they will never tell the rest of us about it.
John, You are absolutely right. You have been saying from day one that Obama Care made promises that were never paid for. Almost everyone will have expanded coverage, but the act provided no funds to increase the number of doctors need to provide the promised care.
Imagine the doctors’ offices fielding all these “mystery shopper” calls. I used to have to call the marketing offices of dozens of competitors. They always knew that I was not a potential customer because the questions I asked weren’t what a normal customer would ask. (plus, you get used to asking the same thing, so it starts to sound scripted.) I am guessing the receptionists with uncover the so-called mystery shoppers fairly easily.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0611/57975.html
That didn’t take long.