Of all the problems that Americans will associate with their new healthcare regime, doctors have nothing to fear. They will all do quite well.
Yes, their fees will be lowered and regulated but they will still be able to rake in the bucks. It is highly unlikely that people will be seen on the streets with signs that say “will provide medical advice for food”. Adding 32 million people to the ranks of those who can visit a doctor without paying fees out of pocket will dramatically increase the demand for medical services. And, the inability of insurance companies to impose caps on payments will also see more and more medical services provided. Those people who worry constantly about their health (and of course global warming) and have nothing better to do with their days will spend a lot of their time in medical office waiting rooms getting their “free” health care.
There is already a shortage of doctors in the United States, especially primary care physicians. What these doctors will lose in fees per patient they will make up in volume. If some Americans compare their current healthcare to dining on a fine steak in an elegant restaurant, their future healthcare will be like eating a Big Mac at McDonald’s. After all, both those types of establishments serve beef. And more importantly, despite the economic downturn with businesses going under and people losing their homes, McDonald’s has not been heard to complain. McDonald’s are not crying poverty and neither will the doctors. Assuming those people wearing lab coats that surrounded the president were in fact medical doctors it is not difficult to believe that they champion the Obama-Reid-Pelosi healthcare system.
As Canada has found out, there is no easy answer to combat a doctor shortage. The problem is really acute in Ontario where the socialist provincial government in the early 1990s came up with a twofer. In order to reduce healthcare costs the government not only reduced healthcare spending but they cut the education budget by reducing the number of places in the province’s medical schools. And two decades later, the people are still feeling the effects. And many Canadians have yet to understand that a doctor shortage in the United States will lead to doctors being lured south of the border exacerbating the current shortage.
A lot of American doctors are threatening to leave the medical profession in the wake of the new law. Sure, a lot of older doctors will undoubtedly retire earlier than they have planned to escape the bureaucracy that will begin to run their lives. And there will be some young people to whom medical school will become a less attractive career choice. But for younger practicing doctors, what is the alternative for them? While some will have other feasible options, most will not. What are they going to do; apply to become IRS agents? There will be no huge exit from the profession any more than there was a stampede of Hollywood leftists to Canada after the election and the re-election of that awful George W. Bush.
A visit to a doctor in Obamaworld will go something like this:
Doctor: What’s the problem?
Patient: I have a headache.
Doctor: I’m going to refer you to a neurologist for some tests.
Patient: Ok; thanks Doc.
Assuming that there is no language barrier between doctor and patient and neither has a speech impediment, the entire office visit would take about 30 seconds. The primary care physician is off the hook because he or she referred the patient to a specialist. The neurologist may find something that later will be found to be inconsequential and refer the patients to other specialists for more and more tests. So not only will primary care doctors make a good living on volume but so will the specialists.
If the primary care doctor had spent a little more time with the patient he or she might have learned that the headache that the patient complained of had something to do with the 20 or 22 beers that were consumed the night before while watching Monday night football. But doctors will no longer be able to afford to do that, anymore than McDonald’s is able to cook a burger medium rare.
Whatever happens in the future, doctors need not worry.
