New York Doctors Flee Obamacare: ‘I Plan To Retire’

benrl

I can picture this future conversation...

Your child: " dad what made you and mom had kids?"

JackSparrow 17 "Thank Obama..."

Oh I'm a better storyteller than that! Ahem...

"A long time ago in the mythical land of the Free States, there was a King named Barry Obama. He loved his citizens so much that he decried affordable healthcare for all! Incidentally, due to the high cost on the poor citizens, medicine was not made readily available to all. King Barry was so confused as to why it didn't work! Many mommies and daddies couldn't afford medicine that kept mommies from having babies before they were either tuckered out from partying, or financially ready. Coincidentally, son, that's where you come in..."

Saw this coming. So did the doctors. They already do not take Medicaid because they only get 40 dollars. What doctor wants to work for that? Medicare also pays them below what they normally get or ask for. So that's why Medicare doctors are limited. Obamacare will do the exact same thing it will fix prices and the doctors will once again decide whether they will accept it or not.

Nothing new here really. Just more insurance companies not wanting to pay their fair share. Been happening for a very long time. This is exactly why every insurance company including Medicaid and Medicare gives you access to a website where you can search for doctors that take your insurance. Just don't expect great care with this type of insurance. Or expect that you will have to travel further then before to see a doctor.

I'm disappointed. This is like a cold; the symptoms are worse than the disease. The system is voluntarily crashing itself and blaming the ACA for it. That's what is going to hurt people in the end, I think.

JackSparrow17

benrl

I can picture this future conversation...

Your child: " dad what made you and mom had kids?"

JackSparrow 17 "Thank Obama..."

Oh I'm a better storyteller than that! Ahem...

"A long time ago in the mythical land of the Free States, there was a King named Barry Obama. He loved his citizens so much that he decried affordable healthcare for all! Incidentally, due to the high cost on the poor citizens, medicine was not made readily available to all. King Barry was so confused as to why it didn't work! Many mommies and daddies couldn't afford medicine that kept mommies from having babies before they were either tuckered out from partying, or financially ready. Coincidentally, son, that's where you come in..."

Much better than:
"The President of the United States Scr**ed your Mommy and me...and you were born!"

Baddogma
If doc's are fleeing to their golf courses then I say ...good! The sort of docs who don't much care for money and are in it to help people are rather rare these days, and the ones that spread unnecessary meds are common.

A few retiring and the racket getting less a rep as a money maker are only good things, imo.

Now if we only had a single payer "option."

I am not here to defend doctors but I would like to point out something I think few people take in to account when they start dissing the doctors that 'care more about money' etc. I worked for a major Medical Center for 15 years. I worked closely with attending physicians, residents (doctors that are training in a specific field of medicine) and interns (doctors that haven't chosen a field yet). I was shocked to find that even senior residents made less per year than I did and registered nurses made more than me. Taking all that into account let's consider the debt that most doctors start with after getting out of Med School. I looked at the average cost of 4 years of college or University and 4 years of Med School. After 8 years of education, the average doctor has $200,000 debt and has yet to earn a paycheck. So at the age of roughly 26 they are that far in the hole. The average salary of a resident is $45, 000 a year. They work as many as 100 hours a week, sometimes more. Do the math. That is approximately 5200 hours a year. That averages out to less than $10 an hour. Depending on the field they have chosen, their residency last from 3-7 years. They do not charge by the patient. They get whatever salary the Medical Center or hospital has agreed to pay them. This salary will not drastically increase during their residency. Their debt comes due the moment they graduate from Medical School and then they also need to factor in living expenses. They are not buying houses, expensive cars etc. They are struggling.

Now let's move on to life after residency. What are their expenses? Right off the top of my head, I can think of one MAJOR expense. Medical Malpractice Insurance. What does that cost? That depends on several factors. What field of medicine they are in and in what state they practice. Just by doing a little google research I found that Pennsylvania falls in the middle. General surgeons pay between $28,000 to $50,000 a year. What are they earning? I googled that and came up with $200,000/year. Do you think they have even paid off their debt from school yet? Doubtful. So now they are still paying off their school loans. They have to pay Medical Malpractice insurance. At the age of 29-33 years old they are just getting started. We are talking averages here. An OB/GYN pays much more for malpractice.

All in all, a doctor does not begin to break even for quite some time. Yes, eventually they begin to have an easier life monetarily. They still work long hours. A 40 hour work week would be a vacation for them. Believe me, I've worked with attendings and they still have loooooong hours. How many of us would be willing to put in those hours, early in a career with so little pay? It is akin to someone starting a business. The hours are long and hard in the beginning and takes many years before they are earning a profit. They are still putting in long hours throughout their whole career. So these doctors 'care more about money'? Really?

Khaleesi

Baddogma
If doc's are fleeing to their golf courses then I say ...good! The sort of docs who don't much care for money and are in it to help people are rather rare these days, and the ones that spread unnecessary meds are common.

A few retiring and the racket getting less a rep as a money maker are only good things, imo.

Now if we only had a single payer "option."

I am not here to defend doctors but I would like to point out something I think few people take in to account when they start dissing the doctors that 'care more about money' etc. I worked for a major Medical Center for 15 years. I worked closely with attending physicians, residents (doctors that are training in a specific field of medicine) and interns (doctors that haven't chosen a field yet). I was shocked to find that even senior residents made less per year than I did and registered nurses made more than me. Taking all that into account let's consider the debt that most doctors start with after getting out of Med School. I looked at the average cost of 4 years of college or University and 4 years of Med School. After 8 years of education, the average doctor has $200,000 debt and has yet to earn a paycheck. So at the age of roughly 26 they are that far in the hole. The average salary of a resident is $45, 000 a year. They work as many as 100 hours a week, sometimes more. Do the math. That is approximately 5200 hours a year. That averages out to less than $10 an hour. Depending on the field they have chosen, their residency last from 3-7 years. They do not charge by the patient. They get whatever salary the Medical Center or hospital has agreed to pay them. This salary will not drastically increase during their residency. Their debt comes due the moment they graduate from Medical School and then they also need to factor in living expenses. They are not buying houses, expensive cars etc. They are struggling.

Now let's move on to life after residency. What are their expenses? Right off the top of my head, I can think of one MAJOR expense. Medical Malpractice Insurance. What does that cost? That depends on several factors. What field of medicine they are in and in what state they practice. Just by doing a little google research I found that Pennsylvania falls in the middle. General surgeons pay between $28,000 to $50,000 a year. What are they earning? I googled that and came up with $200,000/year. Do you think they have even paid off their debt from school yet? Doubtful. So now they are still paying off their school loans. They have to pay Medical Malpractice insurance. At the age of 29-33 years old they are just getting started. We are talking averages here. An OB/GYN pays much more for malpractice.

All in all, a doctor does not begin to break even for quite some time. Yes, eventually they begin to have an easier life monetarily. They still work long hours. A 40 hour work week would be a vacation for them. Believe me, I've worked with attendings and they still have loooooong hours. How many of us would be willing to put in those hours, early in a career with so little pay? It is akin to someone starting a business. The hours are long and hard in the beginning and takes many years before they are earning a profit. They are still putting in long hours throughout their whole career. So these doctors 'care more about money'? Really?

What you said!

I have many doctors, nurses, etc. in my family. ALL OF THEM got into it because they want to help people and they have good bedside manners and have an aptitude for the sciences.

We want doctors to be up to date on all treatments and not screw up (and when they do, we want to be compensated fairly). That costs money.

reply to post by IAMTAT


Maybe these doctors will move more in the direction of healing and prevention now. Western medicine has not been too terribly successful, the population gets sicker while the Medical complex gets filthy rich.

reply to post by Crakeur

The insurers tend to pay based on some national average and the NYC docs wind up getting screwed, thus many of them won't take insurance.

I used to work in insurance and, actually, each state has a medical fee guide with pricing for every medical procedure. These guides are geographicly specific with pricing being higher in regions with a higher cost of living and lower pricing in lower cost of living areas. The pricing is set based upon a 3 year (if memory serves me correctly) average price for each specific procedure in each specific region.

In fact, below is a link to a website in which you can enter your geographic region and the CPT code you wish to know the the pricing on. These are the values that insurance companies use to determine the amount they will pay for a procedure.

ocm.ama-assn.org...

If you play around with their search function, you will see that prices on specific procedures vary by region....sometimes these regions are only a few miles apart.

~Lucidity
‘I Plan To Retire’ = 'I have fleeced the system for all I could and now I'm going to go enjoy it while you suckers deal with the ramifications of what I and those like me have created'

At least he CAN retire. :eyeroll:

When you can perform a heart transplant, deal with multiple gunshot wounds and prep for surgery at a moments notice to save a life, when you can deal with the reality of infants dying on your table despite your best efforts to save them and move past it, when you can work on call 24 hours a day and sleep in broom closets, then talk about fleecing the system, until then........... Keep carrying water for a broken law implemented by a broken federal government and administration.

Are medical costs expensive? Yes, that is what insurance is for and it has been working for the most part. If you want to address the 30 million people that are uninsured because they can't afford it or don't want it, go ahead and do that just don't get my insurance cancelled or increases my rates and my families rates at the same time.

That is the problem and it's the same for hundreds of thousands of Americans right now today because of Obamacare and the blatant, egregious and hurtful lies that have been told by this agenda pushing administration and it's main stream media cohorts. This law is a lie, a sham and has been falsely advertised from start to finish.

It will bring America to it's knees and possibly cause the worst polarization the country has seen since the civil war but I guess thats all just change you can believe in.

Pffff, scoffing at doctors prices instead of realizing what a lemon this law really is...... Easy way out.

As the old saying goes, "You don't become a doctor for the money, because the money isn't worth the time and effort you put into helping people." The same goes for nurses, they tend not to do it for the money. But there is certainly a limit on how much doctors and nurses will go through to help people, I mean if you let the people at the top walk over you all the time, there's only so much you can take. Obama is doing just that, he's clearing house and keeping those and only those that are willing to be trampled onto.

I don't know whether or not Americans will allow Obamacare to continue but it seems like it will likely come to an end next year. Call it a guess or a premonition but I don't see much happening with the project by August of next year. Taking bets on whether or not I'm right

six67seven
Whether a mass-doctor exit was considered or not, it doesn't matter and the Obama admin would've done the exact same thing anyway, pass Obamacare. Do people actually think this admin cares about the American people? If so, I'd love to see some examples as to why they believe that. Go ahead and create a Pros/Cons list of what this administration has done/passed/created/extended... I guarantee you the "Con" side will heavily out-weigh the "Pro" side.

I wonder if this admin took more advice from the insurance companies or the doctors... yes, I wonder...

Come on!! This is a huge waste of American time, money and LIVES!! There is no debating this. You don't need to be prophetic to see what is about to happen to our economy, our livelihood, our nation.

Sickening

If my information is correct, I understand that Obamacare was hammered out by the Insurance industry, Big Pharma, and the Dem politicians. No healthcare providers (doctors & nurses) were consulted.

As I have posted before, Obamacare is NOT about improving our healthcare. It's a massive expansion of Federal power (control & money -- the penalty is a new tax that goes up every year).

It's so heartwarming to think of the IRS with electronic access to our medical histories.

While Obamacare may not be the answer, the current system is broken. It's absolutely ridiculous how many a doctor makes for next to no service. This was years ago... but when my daughter broke her leg, the doctors office insisted on a regular checkup while wearing a cast. I'm ok with that. We waited for 20 minutes in a chilly room, until he showed up. He asked her how it felt. He had her walk across the room and back. The entire checkup lasted literally 3 minutes or so. Probably closer to 2. We paid the co-pay. The insurance covered the rest. All 280 bucks of it.

I certainly wish I made 100 dollars a MINUTE. $6,000.00 an hour? Great job that.

Another example - I was paying co-pay for my wife's prescription for a med she had to take regularly. 15 bucks with my insurance. The pharmacy would occasionally ask for my card.. was random thing.. for verification. One day I didn't have it for whatever reason. I told them that I'd have to come back.. but I needed it that day.. and they were closing soon. I asked them how much it would be to just pay full price. It was FOUR DOLLARS. I was paying 15 bucks on a co-pay for a medicine that cost 4 bucks.

The system is broken. It's rife with opportunities to ream insurance companies for service.. and those companies "pass along" those costs to the companies that pay them. End of the day, it affects you. Your paycheck, bonuses, etc.. those are directly affected by such thing as insurance premiums your company ends up paying. The doctors are making a killing off of it. It's not fair, it's not right.. it does need fixing.

Obamacare.. perhaps not the correct solution. But I at least give kudos to that administration for TRYING to make a difference. One that is saying "hmm.. our system is broken beyond belief." At least attention is drawn to the problem, and that's a start. For all the negative crap regarding Obamacare, at least they TRIED to make a difference. More than I can say for previous administrations.

Why is the US the only nation in the world which seems to have a problem with Universal Healthcare?

LITERALLY all the rest of the developed world has universal healthcare, and it works there and has NOT in any way influenced doctors (and patients, obviously) negatively *whatsoever*.

Even in countries such as a Germany or in Scandinavian countries where the universal healthcare is established for a very long time already...doctors are making GOOD money.

Let's get REAL:

*** THE AVERAGE MONTHLY INCOME OF A GENERAL PRACTITIONER IN GERMANY is €14,000 (!!!!) per month ***
Neurologist: €15,000 MONTH
Eye Doctor: €20,000 MONTH
Radiologists/Neurologists earn the most with €25,0000 MONTH (!!)

( 20,000 EURO == 27,0000 DOLLARS)

See how "socialized medicine" is really hurting doctors in Europe.... /SARCASM

Also, back in the US, and this was when my wife actually HAD insurance through her work we had to visit the ER a few times where they did some standard tests, blood tests, EKG or something...all I remember is that we got a bill later and it was $500-$700 for about 2hrs in the ER. Sorry, I don't remember the exact amount anymore.

When we lived in Germany, my wife also had to visit the ER one day where we spent literally the entire day and they did a ****load of tests, several blood tests and also EKG, doctor consultation etc..etc.

Here comes the kicker: At that time WE DID NOT HAVE HEALTH-INSURANCE. I was prepared to pay directly right out of my pocket. Knowing about the insane costs of an ER visit in the US I was expecting several hundred Euros, at the very least. I went to the cashier and they billed us €70 for the entire day at the ER, all tests etc. included. Again, this was *without* any health insurance.

So..ask yourself why something which works in ANY other country on this planet is not supposed to work in the US.
Maybe that's the reason Obama is tapping other leader's phones since you guys (your leaders) are too stupid to do something successfully what works everywhere else.

And by the way, usually [in Europe] it is that way that the "mandatory" health insurance covers basic things but you always have the option to A) buy "private" health insurance which covers more or B) pay more if the "mandatory" health insurance doesn't cover certain things.

For example, even as someone unemployed or on "welfare" you automatically get health-insurance. You go to the dentist and the dentist tells you that your insurance covers crowns, but not the "fancy" natural looking crowns but only gold/silver crowns. But then you can pay a relatively low sum, say, €20 per tooth in addition to get the "fancy" crowns, since no one in their right mind would want to have ugly golden crowns/caps, obviously.

Also..as pointed out above...no-one "forces" you to go with the "mandatory" health-insurance since you are free to pay whatever you want to get private coverage depending what you want to/can spend on health insurance.

some of you talk about money for doctors.

it makes me wonder how british doctors do it.

we pay our doctors 2x (highest in the world) as much as british doctors, yet rank 38th. the brits rank 18.

how is that possible?

reply to post by IAMTAT


Some doctors are very greedy and are only practicing medicine for the $$$.

These are the ones who don't want Obamacare. They would have to make their prices competitive in order to get patients.

abomination oh obamanation

the obamanation that causes desolation

why are you trying to destory this great nation

that's like a sililique

reply to post by IAMTAT


If insurance plans are canceling their policies it"s because they are too expensive to be competitive with other plans. When people go on the health exchanges site they will not choose them. If the insurers were less greedy they would just make their plans reasonably priced, and then they would get customers.

reply to post by IAMTAT


Doctors are overpaid. They are in cahoots with big pharma and control way to much of how and what we take to get "better". Now, they are getting scared because their little mafia is being scrutinized.

If doctors really cared for people they wouldn't bail out. But let's face it. You don't go through all the years of college for the care factor. It's money.

Run Doctor Run.

reply to post by reaganero


Well since YOU think Doctors are in it JUST for the money, why dont YOU go back to school for 8+ years to be a doctor and charge as little as possible, hell, since I assume youre NOT in it for the money, why not do it FOR FREE????
Lets see how long that lasts with 200,000 plus in student loans, plus insurance, plus wages for your nurses and technicians, the rent or mortgage of your office

Yeah, didnt think so...

HomerinNC
reply to post by reaganero

 

Well since YOU think Doctors are in it JUST for the money, why dont YOU go back to school for 8+ years to be a doctor and charge as little as possible, hell, since I assume youre NOT in it for the money, why not do it FOR FREE????
Lets see how long that lasts with 200,000 plus in student loans, plus insurance, plus wages for your nurses and technicians, the rent or mortgage of your office

Yeah, didnt think so...

Uhm, you probably didn't see my post above where I gave the example of Germany which has "socialized Healthcare" since the 19th century already where a doctor EASILY makes $25,000-$30,000++/month, REGARDLESS.

Will you deny that doctors in the US are now panicking for any OTHER reason than the possibility that they MIGHT make less money?

Your example with the student loans etc. is funny since this applies to almost ANY profession, you make it sound like doctors are the ONLY ones who need to pay rent, mortgages, employees, student loans etc...what irony since doctors will STILL be top earners above many others.

The same principle by the way applies for insurance coverage/companies.

Q: WHY ARE MANY INSURANCE COVERAGES CANCELLED DUE TO OBAMACARE?

A: Because under the new law, many of those rip-off policies are not legal anymore, because insurers charge too much...or impose limitations or inadequate coverage on patients (due to pre-existing conditions etc.)...in other words: INSURANCE COMPANIES ARE RIPPING OFF PEOPLE - and Obamacare will set an end to this, it will make those practices illegal, THIS is why many old insurance companies will be invalidated once Obamacare takes off.

Funny how some background information and research can reveal astonishing things, but of course it takes effort to do some research and get educated....it's much easier to just post (in the MSM or wherever else) hyped up headlines like "Obamacare makes people lose their insurance cover" WITHOUT EXPLAINING (or caring about) THE TRUE REASON BEHIND IT.