Maybe it’s just as well that state-run ObamaCare exchanges are collapsing under the weight of their own economic implausibility. If they were able to successfully provide people with decent health insurance coverage, there wouldn’t be enough doctors to provide the services anyway. ObamaCare strikes again!
That’s what we learned this week in a report from the American Association of Medical Colleges. While the government is trying to manipulate people into increasing their utilization of health care services, the economic illogic of ObamaCare is creating a disincentive for people to become doctors. So you’ll have more people demanding more services, and fewer doctors available to provide them.
Ever wonder why you hear these horror stories about people waiting months for a life-saving operation in countries that have government-run health care? Starting to understand it now?
Being a doctor can still be a very nice living, but the government never fails to find new ways to complicate that. Once you get through medical school and finally retire the debt you incurred there, and once you get through a residency that often sees you working insane hours for surprisingly little money, you might have the chance to start a lucrative practice. But there are problems. Medicaid reimbursement rates hardly allow doctors to make any money at all treating Medicaid patients, and most of the people who have gotten “covered” under ObamaCare really just enrolled in expanded Medicaid.
So you’ve got more patients than ever seeking medical care from doctors who will be asked to provide the services for next to nothing. Meanwhile, the bureaucratic paper-pushing they have to do to comply with all the federal government’s requirements grows on a constant basis. So they’re working more hours, but spending less of that time actually treating patients, and making less money on average for the patients they do see.
This is where I might ask, “Why would anyone want to become a doctor?”
And a liberal might respond, “Hey, doctors can still make more money than auto workers, fast food workers, etc.”
Sure they can. But you have to work a lot harder and take a lot more risks to become a doctor, and when you do that you expect the rewards to be worth your effort. Is it still worth it to make what doctors can make today vs. what they could make before all this nonsense started? Some will decide that it is. But more than in the past will decide that it’s not, and voila! You will have fewer doctors.
This might be where the liberal will say, “Doctors should be motivated to help people, not to make money!”
Great. You take all the doctors who care only about helping people and not at all about the money they can make. Put them to one side. Then take the doctors who care about making a good living. Put them on the other side. If that first group is all the doctors you’ve got, guess what: We’re all going to die, because that’s not enough doctors!
Usually when Democrats make insane economic policies, and people respond by doing things Democrats don’t like because it’s in their interests to do so, the response is to rail against those people as unpatriotic or something. We’ve seen this for years with companies who expand their overseas presence to avoid this nation’s crushing 35 percent corporate tax rate.
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How dare they not become doctors just because we made it harder for them to make a living at it?
Expect Democrats to start going off on doctors soon, as well. How dare they not become doctors just because we made it harder for them to make a living at it? This is what happens when the culture of big government and free stuff runs up against the reality that people need to make a living – and they can’t do it by helping you give away, for free, things that have real value.
Oh well. You could always try doing surgery on yourself. It’s messy and unlikely to work, but it’s free! That’s what we’re all about in America these days, isn’t it?
Maybe it’s just as well that state-run ObamaCare exchanges are collapsing under the weight of their own economic implausibility. If they were able to successfully provide people with decent health insurance coverage, there wouldn’t be enough doctors to provide the services anyway. ObamaCare strikes again!
That’s what we learned this week in a report from the American Association of Medical Colleges. While the government is trying to manipulate people into increasing their utilization of health care services, the economic illogic of ObamaCare is creating a disincentive for people to become doctors. So you’ll have more people demanding more services, and fewer doctors available to provide them.
