Any psych doctor not working for the CA prison system is a sucker tho.

This is laughably wrong.
Educating more doctors wouldn't really solve the problem. It's a step, but not a solution. There are massive financial incentives to not become a primary care physician, which isn't good because we need more of them now.
Insults to deny reality.
And this is simple reality denial. Look, at this point we've essentially made a commitment to a technocratic approach to health care. Unfortunately this requires a technocratic approach to government, which, as a whole, we don't have. This isn't helped by the kneejerk ******ation you bring to this thread wrt to serious topics like the PCP shortage. The only real chance we have to deal with this is various legislative approaches, and you are here calling me ******ed for bringing it up. Health care policy has a bright future in the US.

Medicare/Medicaid are a major part of doctor pay discrepancies that pay big bucks for procedures but not clinic visits. In fact, most private rates are structured off a similar relative rate structure that medicare is.

Again, psr, ikes, what the **** does any of this **** have to do with Obamacare? Obamacare is health insurance reform. It is not about the doctor's end. Is your problem that Obamacare did not also include a MASSIVE investment in new training hospitals? That seems to be the implication of complaining about the lack of residency spots. If not that, what was your point? (besides, of course, "I KNOWS A THING")

Also, just as a "big picture thing", if Obamacare was actually doing something to increase the supply of doctors, we all know you'd be FURIOUSLY WHINING about how this was going to drive down doctor salaries.

Like, what the **** does this even mean?

Agreed. If the govt said tomorrow that everyone would be given a free 5,000+ sq/ft house it wouldn't be the govt's fault that there weren't enough 5k+ sq/ft homes to give to people. This would be welfare reform. You people would probably complain that this didn't include a MASSIVE investment in new home building.

"Also, just as a "big picture thing", if giving away big homes was actually doing something to increase the supply of big houses, we all know you'd be FURIOUSLY WHINING about how this was going to drive down big homes values."

Man, the fact that you think that makes sense and/or advances your argument is just sad.

I am pointing out the absurdity in the dem argument that you can give away free healthcare and be surprised when there is a shortage of doctors or treatment rooms.

There are so many faulty assumptions, factual errors and idiotic analogies that I don't know where to start. So I won't.

I've heard it bantered about that doctors could be spared their huge student loan debts if they are willing to practice in less than desirable locations, such as small towns, poor areas, etc. Is this something that is being seriously debated? Seems like it would help a lot. I wouldn't want to go to med school for 19436432365 years, with crushing debt when I finished, then go to work in some small town or poor area where my ability to pay off those debts would be severely limited.

Welfare for doctors? BRILLANT!

In all seriousness, I think public school teachers do get something like this. It is ****ing bull****, IMO.

This is already done in other fields. I know for lawyers, there are loan assistance programs available for those who take certain public interest jobs that pay much less than private sector positions. In turn these jobs (a lot of which are very important) become much more competitive because people with soul crushing debt might be able to survive working them.

Has nobody else seen Northern Exposure?

Yeah, I still think that is bull****.

Care to elaborate, or is it just "I already give my all my tax money to lazy and poor people so **** doctors"?

I was going to say something about me paying my taxes so screw lazy and poor doctors, but since you said what you said I guess I cant.

Not sure if it was this thread or some other one where we discussed the absurdity of farmer subsides, but the same logic is in play here. No reason to compensate people for doing work in less desirable areas (or industries in the case of the farmers). Either someone will come along and take the job w/o the extra money, the town will come up w/ the money, the doctor will charge more for everything or the town will go with out.

http://search.mywebsearch.com/mywebs...fIupnieM8d9ceQ

The shortage is in primary care physicians. Few want to be a family doctor. The big money is being a specialist.

Point taken, and long term I'm sure primary care incomes will see a considerable rise in the next 10 years, but that may not be enough in the short term to satisfy a med student graduating >$100,000 in debt that needs to choose a specialty right now.

For what must be the 100th time in this thread, Obamacare exacerbates the current doctor shortage by increasing demand.

You can jack off to your fantasies all you want, but it still isn't real.

Ike,

Lets just assume you are right and that Obamacare exacerbates an existing doctor shortage. Instead of thinking 'hmm, he have finally achieved health care for everyone, and now 40 million people who were previously uninsured will have access to care outside the ER. That's great, but we're going to need more doctors - how can we go about getting more qualified medical professionals into the health care systems,' you just go right to 'Obamacare bad.'

Like, I'll take a temporary and fixable doctor shortage over 40 million uninsured Americans any day. You apparently won't.

In a typical market this would be true, and it is true to some extent. Doctors who work in butt**** texas get paid a ton more than doctors who work in San Diego. However, this is true only for specialists while primary care physicians do not make nearly as much. This has a lot to do with how medicare/medicaid (the largest payer of doctors in the nation by leaps and bounds, and even more so for poor people, which is where these shortages are focused) pays a lot more for procedures than for doctors visits. For example, a doctor who spends 1 hour visiting with you will get paid around 100-200 bucks depending on a few things. However, a 1 hour surgery can get thousands.

Specialists in rural and poor areas with shortages get paid more by keeping a higher percentage of insurance payouts, and this can happen because insurers pay a ton for procedures (which leaves more room for overhead costs). Primary care physicians otoh, have already hit that maximum pay structure built in medicare/medicaid, so moving to work in rural or poor areas isn't a financial boon.

In a truly free market, there would be a correction due to supply and demand. However, due to the various ways our health care laws are setup, the incentives that normally alleviate a shortage are not created and in fact, reversed, exacerbating the shortage.

Riverman name one ****ing time I've used the doctor shortage to say Obamacare is bad or gtfo.

Obamacare is going to be the law for a long time, and libertarians lost the fight on health care about 5 decades ago. The reforms I want to pass will never come to be, and since I want to work in this field I'm stuck with the technocratic centralized system we've mostly adopted. I will have to learn to work in it and that's I'm doing here. All I've done itt is point out various problems in our health care policies that you've strenuously and stridently ignored for 15 pages.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Ikestoys. Not a Republican, not saying Obamacare bad. Our resident moderate in action.

ikes- Re: The Great ObamaCare Debate, Part 233

This type of thing is already happening, and really isn't enough. The problem is that debt relief, while awesome, is worth ~300k at most. Sounds like a ton of money right? Well, considering the average family practice doc makes 179k and the average surgeon makes 320k, that initial 300k is still worth dick in comparison.

Granted, surgeons and many specialists should get paid more than family docs: they have longer residencies, work more hours and require more training. However, since we take every medical student and give them the choice between becoming a PCP and a specialist (which is ******ed), we end up with as little people choosing PCP as possible.