What Some People Call “Universal Care”
This is from White Coat Notes via Avik Roy:
A new poll of 838 Massachusetts doctors finds patients are still waiting weeks — in some cases as long as a month and a half — for non-urgent appointments with primary care physicians and certain specialists….
Surveyors for the Massachusetts Medical Society [found] … the average wait ranged from 24 days for an appointment with a pediatrician to 48 days to see an internist. The wait for an internist was actually down slightly, from 53 days in a similar 2010 survey, but the waits for family doctors, gastroenterologists, orthopedists, and ob/gyns increased…
And this is from The Wall Street Journal:
Another notable finding in the Medical Society survey is the provider flight from government health care. Merely 43% of internists and 56% of family physicians accept Commonwealth Care, the heavily subsidized middle-class insurance program. The same respective figures are 53% and 62% for price-controlled Medicaid. Government health insurance may be great, but not if it can’t buy actual health care.
Contrast “universal care” with the following post on entrepreneurial care.
Other people call it Romneycare.
Low provider fees for doctors willing to participate in Medicaid and Commonwealth Care serve another purpose. Not only is the state getting better rates than commercial payers, the state also saves when people get better during their wait for an appointment and no longer need the care. This is not unlike rationing that takes place in single-payer systems.
Corporate hospitals that accept the ACO model will simply import H1B visa doctors to fill the void AND increase profits through lower doctor costs.
I agree with Erik. We’ll definitely be seeing many more foreign doctors.
Erik, you are missing the point. The way socialistic healh care schemes hold down costs is by restricting supply and rationing care.