Coming from the medical field I can tell you this. The primary reason doctors quit or abandon their specialty is due to skyrocketing professional (e.g., malpractice) insurance. Most people would find it difficult to believe but it is VERY difficult to keep a private practice profitable as a result. To do so requires running a high volume of patients through the practice every month. Hence the 15min doctor visit. My brother was a primary care physician. I know how this works first-hand.

Notwithstanding the sketchy motives behind the 'impartial' study you will find (if you choose to read it) that they polled physicians in private practice. The concerns raised are that the physician shortage (intentionally engineered by the AMA, btw) will lead to over-burdened private practices which are already running at maximum volumes due to the profitability issues raised above. As more people are able to see private physicians there is concern about the level of care these physicians can provide when they are swamped.

What the study chooses NOT to do is poll hospitals where they would get a resoundingly different result. All these people who cannot currently see private doctors are delaying treatment and ending up in emergency rooms. Since they have no insurance and the hospital cannot deny care the hospitals eat the cost of caring for all those people who typically require more expensive treatment because they are not receiving adequate preventative medical care. As a result, hospitals are under serious financial stress and many have closed or been forced to scale-back operations.

'Obamacare' may not be a perfect solution but the status quo is entirely unsustainable. Community hospitals are being forced to close and in some areas of the country you now need to travel hundreds of miles for a hospital. Something has to be done and quickly. The majority of people fighting healthcare reform have a financial stake in maintaining the status quo. It's almost always about the money.

What needs to be done immediately is:

1. Tell the AMA to back-off and expand the roles for Physicians Assistants and Nurse Practitioners

2. Fast-track tort reform to significantly reduce the cost of malpractice and other professional insurance

3. Incent more young people to enter primary care medicine as either MD's, PA's or NP's

4. Hyper-aggressively hunt-down medicare/medicaid fraud including establishing significant bounties for turning perpetrators in. Strip all property protection from individuals/companies convicted of medicaid/medicare fraud.

5. Establish a 3-strike rule for attorneys bringing frivolous medical law suits. Either execute them or have them lose their licenses for 3-5yrs

6. Broaden Health Savings Accounts (HSA's)


Gotta fix this mess or people are going to be really shocked when it all comes un-glued.

Being a Doctor in Texas ,I believe the number 83% is low. We are thankful that our state is not participating in it. What I see is an increase in Physician Assistants and Nurse practitioners taking over. We as doctors have shot ourselves in the foot by having let these 2 disiplines take over. How hard is it to be a doctor? We just write out scripts all day, because that is what people want! Our healthcare has been going downhill for a long time, ever since big pharma has taken over. Honestly patients see a commercial of a happy family, people smiling, just enjoying life and they associatethat with the drug.They feel if they take it then they will be teleported into that life.
If I don't write a script for it then they go from doc to doc until one writes the script.Sometimes I wonder if it is worth the battles of not giving in to the big pharma complex. My practice is more and more holistic and less and less drugs, and getting better results than other docs in the same specialty. I believe more and more docs are waking up to this realization.

When did ATS become over run with big government, big brother, establishment supporters?

This is going to sound crazy but if opiates were declared legal and free, emergency rooms would be largely empty. Its insane what people say and do to get pain pills from the ER. They are " Frequent Flyers".

The poll is silly if you ask me .. Doctors won't quit, they are just mad because they might see their pay checks drop a little as the Government seeks a better deal on treatment costs..Doctors in the united states average higher than any other place on the planet ( in 2007 a GP was averaging over $160 thousand USD per year, a specialist was averaging $230k per year ) .... a GP with an established practice also averages about 6 weeks paid vacation per year as well, some even go 8-10 ... I admire medical professionals, don't get me wrong.. but when you look at the cost of diagnostic testing, hospital visits and all of those things, even medication in the USA compared to the rest of the world you can see a huge disparity..

That's the problem here in the USA .. We seem to think it's normal for health care to be a business when it should be a basic right ..The fact we let it run as a business has caused the costs to skyrocket over time and big pharma holds heavy blame there as well .. the cost of a drug in the USA is typically many times higher than the same drug in another country.. greed

We don't have any problem at all that requiring car insurance is fine, if you don't have that you risk losing your license and face fines .. no problem there.. It just doesn't make much sense to me..

Doctors set limit on how many patients they see each day. The reason they don't spend a lot of time with each patient is due to them wanting to make more money.

All the vitriolic insults! Nice!!!...........

For a few of you who get it, thank you!! For the rest of you who have their hands in the sand, do some
research!! You will soon see how Obamacare is going to be disastrous to the health care field period!!


It is going to effect the quality of care you receive. The doctors will be completely overwhelmed and will not
be able to keep up with the demands!! Not because they choose not to but because it will be physically impossible.
Why would anyone choose to go into medicine when the end result will be govt. making the decisions on how and
what you can be treated for!!!!

You are completely delusional if you think Obamacare is going to be your answer to solve your medical problems!!

You will find out sooner than later how you have allowed yourselves to be conned by this charlatan!!!
Don't be stupid!! Obozo has told lie after lie throughout his political career!! How much BS are you gonna
swallow!!

So when American doctors quit the practice, will govt just bring foreigners in to fill the shoes? Is that the plan? Will they be people from socialist countries who don't care about freedom?

Originally posted by ThirdEyeofHorus
So when American doctors quit the practice, will govt just bring foreigners in to fill the shoes? Is that the plan? Will they be people from socialist countries who don't care about freedom?

edit on 10-7-2012 by ThirdEyeofHorus because: (no reason given)

probably not, they'll just explain how this new utopian health care comes at a price, 3-6 month waiting list for an appointment.

So under Obamacare, doctors get more business?

But most of them aren't taking new patients anyway, and Obamacare won't FORCE them to take on the new patient load, it will just mean that USA will need more doctors to deal with the higher number of people with medical coverage.

We have thousands of people in my home town who can't get in to a regular doctor because they're not taking new patients. Isn't this the same in the USA?

Surely Gov't won't be able to force doctors to take on new patients when they're already full ?