The Obama administration has decided to send ‘secret shoppers’ to doctors’ offices across the country to assess the difficulty of receiving medical care. The hope is to find out if physicians accept privately insured patients while turning away those with government-sponsored health care like Medicare or Medicaid.
With the passage of Obamacare, some 30 million new customers are going to be knocking on doctors’ doors soon, and there is some worry that the rush will further strain the dwindling supply of practicing physicians. By the way, more patients plus fewer doctors equals rationing.
This is why Obamacare will not work. Anyone can wave a magic legislative wand and declare health insurance for all, but that does not translate into actual health care services.
Doctors only get partially reimbursed by the government for the work they do for Medicare and Medicaid patients. Which means they have to charge privately insured patients more to make up the lost cost. Which means that private health insurance costs go up, leading to many people dropping private insurance because they simply can’t afford it. Then there are more people on the public dole, creating a greater financial strain on doctors, who have to up their costs to their private patients again, and the whole thing is just a vicious cycle that leads to a single payer system where people die waiting in ambulances because there’s no room for them in the hospital.
No wonder the number of doctors going into general medicine and surgery is at a record low. Why would anyone spend ten plus years in medical school and residency, amass an average debt of $156,000, and work 80-hour weeks only to be told they can’t charge people what their services are worth?
Why shouldn’t doctors be free to accept patients based on their ability to pay? They have their own bills to pay: Rent, administrative salaries, supply purchases, malpractice insurance (up to $200,000 a year!), etc. Forcing physicians to accept every patient, regardless of their ability to pay, is not the way to fix our health care system.
I asked Dr. Robert Sewell, a prominent Texas physician what he thought about the Obamacare spies:
While the unnamed spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services said the data would be confidential and reported only in the aggregate who is he or she trying to fool. This has nothing to do with gathering data. It is an attempt to bring every doctor into compliance with the President's and his minions' socialist agenda. Free healthcare for everyone. The only one's who will not be free are the docs. This is quite simply over the top.
If the government can demand that doctors work for less than their services are worth, what else can it demand?
Image via Robert S Donovan/Flickr
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Comments 25
Please wake me up when this nightmare administration is over.
I'm not sure if Obamacare is the answer, but something needs to be done to help those of us who are uninsured. Even if I was in the position to get some sort of private health insurance, I would be turned down because of pre-existing conditions. So meanwhile, until something is done, I'm just sitting here, spine gradually fusing into one long bone. With, at the age of twenty-three, a neck of fifty year old. All because I can't afford seventeen hundred dollars a month to buy the medicine that would stop all this damage.
Doctors only get partially reimbursed by the government for the work they do for Medicare and Medicaid patients.
I'm laughing at you right now bc everyone knows those with private ins gets a cheaper rate than those without ins. I'm not saying this is the best move over all but this isn't all that accurate, they'd probably just start charging everyone more to make up for it.
I wish I had more answers and solutions because health care is definitely broken and Obamacare is definitely not the way to fix it. Agevil53, I'm not sure where having private insurance gets you cheaper rates than not having insurance because my experience has been the opposite. We pay out of pocket for my son's well baby visits and my ob check ups because it is much cheaper than going through our insurance. They jack up the prices for having to deal with insurance companies.
"Doctors only get partially reimbursed by the government for the work they do for Medicare and Medicaid patients."
You are wrong. I used to work at a medical supply company based in securing very expensive equipment for handicapped and aging people. The majority of the people we worked with had Medicare/caid. I ASSURE you that those bills GET paid one way or another. Doctors offices and supply companies don't just dish out services/equipment without getting paid for it and they certainly don't charge Joe more because Sally has medicare and can't afford bigger insurance. 98% of people who have Medicare also have medicaid as a secondary insurance policy and while Medicare only covers, lets say 70% of the fee, Medicaid then follows up and pays the remaining 30%
And let's flip the fence here and say okay well we're not talking about someone who has caid/care coverage. Okay, I hate state healthcare while I was pregnant with my son...they only covered 90% of my cost...guess who paid the rest? I did. They don't just not charge for the remainder and pawn it off on the next guy.
I can tell you that my insurance premiums have gone up. My husband works for a small company (less than 50) and as of Jan 1st this year, all of ours base deductable doubled. Where we had to $500.00 per family member before insurance kicked in, we now have to pay $1000.00 per member per calender year.