What's amazing is the list of people so mad at me they're willing to agree with an obviously wrong riverman. Fits with what I'd expect

http://www.latimes.com/health/la-me-...,1509396.story

Article goes on about a turf war within the medical community of California.

You mean to tell me there aren't going to be enough doctor's to meet the demand? Who would have thought that?

Perhaps they should train more doctors then, instead of artificially limiting the number and having this doctor crunch?

Is it also possible that ERs get less busy as people start seeing doctors prior to escalation of illnesses (and those who now go to ER for injuries and ailments may go to a doctor's office instead)?

I love love love the "We can't possibly supply enough doctors for all the people who actually need them in this country" argument. I mean what do we think we are, a first-world country or something?

Let's just face facts and admit we aren't as good as Japan, Australia, S Korea, Canada, South Africa, every country in Europe and a bunch more. We already have more violence and much higher income inequality than those countries. Let's just go the whole 9 yards and let people die in the streets or sell their children into indentured servitude for life-saving surgery like they do in India. End the minimum wage and social safety nets now. Time to thin the herd and get lean, mean and strong again. Freedom is slavery.

The "not enough doctors" thing is just such a perfect crystallization of the "I've got mine, **** everybody else" mindset. So, OK, let's grant some premises. There are not enough doctors to provide health care instantly on demand to a population with 99% health insurance instead of 85% health insurance. So that's a reason to oppose giving those people health insurance? You don't want to wait, so **** those poors let them die in the street? That's literally the only explanation for that, if that was a sincere argument.

Of course, the real explanation is that opponents of Obamacare, TO A MAN, have no ****ing idea how health care, health insurance, Obamacare, taxes, etc. work. They see a bad thing tangentially related to health care(ergo related to Obamacare), they get S00PER EXCITED. It's not just that they don't understand, they cannot even comprehended that it is possible to understand.

If you increase demand and don't increase supply you are obviously going to have a shortage. I think the California proposal is one of the better ways of addressing this situation. Increasing the number of people admitted to medical school and making it easier for foreign doctors to immigrate is another good step.

But yeah, I'll admit it. Im perfectly happy and in favor of paying more money out of my pocket to increase access to healthcare for the poor. Im selish enough that I wouldnt be willing to reduce my access to healthcare.

I think the end game is probably going to be some sort of system with a level of universal healthcare for all, a higher revenue take by the government to pay for it, and then sort of concierge medicine/expanded access for those willing to pay even more. That would be a better system than we have today IMO.

ER's aren't where the shortage is really.


Who is saying this? Because I'm pretty sure I'm describing the facts.
And no one is saying this either.

Cool story though guys. There are significant problems with Obamacare, whether you like it or not. Instead of reflexing calling **** chocolate you should try fixing the issues, because you're gonna eat that brown stuff sooner or later.

Gone over this before, but you need:

1) More medical schools
2) More residencies (very important really)
3) Change in the financial incentives that push people are from becoming a primary care physician.

Yes, agree with all of them, and I still like the CA proposal of moving some routine work away from doctors as well.

Yeah this isn't a one or the other proposition. The move to a pyramid model, where people with less training are the first person you see and complex problems slowly get moved up the pyramid to people with more training, is one I fully support.

Doctors on the whole however, are very much against it for obvious reasons. Unfortunately, they have a great lobbying organization.

What good is health insurance if you don't get quality health coverage?

This post is so bad I literally have no idea how to respond. I guess for now I'll just say that the majority of people who have tried to purchase health insurance on the individual market agree, and almost anyone who has tried to purchase health insurance on the individual market with a pre-existing condition strongly agrees.

What good is education if you don't get quality education right? We should just cut inner-city kids loose to grow up illiterate.

Doctors are dropping out of medicare. We are increasing demand AND lowering the supply of doctors. There are studies which suggests that in over half of all doctor's visits a doctor wasn't necessary. There are school nurses and they will suffice for most visits. Maybe it is time to allow nurses and doctor's assistants to preform more services at a cheaper rate.

There have been reports that a family of four will need to pay $20,000 a year for health insurance in the near future(2016). I don't favor paying more. The U.S. already pays twice as much as any other nation in the world. There must be a less expensive way to provide healthcare.

JFC no there are no reports of that. The IRS used that as an estimate of a self-insured, unsubsidized bronze plan for a family of 5 people. There will be much cheaper plans. Which isn't that far off from what they'd pay now. Pull up from Drudge every now and then.

Cite anything? Ever?

Doctors are not dropping out of medicare at any appreciable rate. Maybe it's not quite cash cow it used to be, but that should be a good thing right? My buddy made a crapton of money selling rascal scooters to medicare patients until the govt tightened the eligibility requirements. Score one for central planning and single-payer-leverage lowering costs right?

No, there aren't, no there havent, and yes, there is:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-payer_health_care

Lol shocker no response to me. Good stuff guys, eat that turd

And yeah, Republicans complaining abut medicare cost control is just incredible stuff.

I'm not responding to you because it is a complete waste of time. Also, Fly covered it.

No he absolutely did not. Keep telling yourself everything is great, you'll get what you deserve.

Whether there is a shortage of doctors is semantics. There is probably a misallocation of doctors, there might be a shortage in certain specialties. The AMA and medical schools could, you know, educate more doctors, but they are too busy waving their crumpled up panties around. Like yeah, we get it, you don't like the law. But it passed 4 years ago and got by the Supreme Court, might be time to adjust to the new reality.

But the bigger point is that to see just how wrong you are you have to have an eye on the larger picture. You constantly argue stupid, marginally relevant points because at your core you don't think there is any problem with the current health care delivery system. This is, conveniently, the position of the Republican Party and one of the many reasons they are fading into irrelevance.

It isn't simply a question of making new doctors. Where are you going to train them at? In three years there will be more US graduates of medical schools then there will be residency openings. We haven't even gotten into the programs nobody wants to go into (e.g. family medicine and psych) because so many of the patients are on various public assistance and the docs never quite get paid what they are owed. We're talking critical specialties like OB/GYN, Pulmonology, Virology, Surgery, Emergency Medicine. There just will be more new MDs then there will be available resident slots.

Even if the shortage of doctors is crap, the question still remains, where are you going to train them at? It isn't like a teaching hospital can just make rotations out of thin air considering the fact that those residents still get paid.

This is just another one of those things were the solution seems to be "write a check and hope for the best"

Dems don't believe that people will make different decisions based on lower take home pay.

Incredible stuff. You guys know Obamacare hasn't been implemented, right? And that the specialties mentioned receive relatively low pay because of private insurance reimbursement rates, right? The only reason psych doctors get paid what they do is medicare and medicaid reimbursements. This is the part where you complain about medicare and medicaid paying too little and too much in consecutive posts, btw.