What happens if you are pregnant, and you can’t see your doctor for four months ?
None of the impending health care reform bills do enough to address the impending shortage of physicians, especially primary care physicians.
Health care reform will be adding more individuals to the health insurance/care system, but, the fact is, more individuals will be using the system, more often.
It’s an obvious fact that an individual who does not have health insurance, does not visit a doctor unless they really feel they need to; they would rather tough it out, than pay for the visit out of pocket.
Individuals with health insurance visit the doctor more often; it’s a fact.
The Baucus Health Care Reform Bill requires all Americans to purchase health insurance, or be fined. So, if we’re adding tens of millions more people to the health insurance rolls, aren’t we also going to be adding tens of millions more doctor visits ?
It’s just common sense that we will need more doctors; alot more doctors, especially Primary Care Physicians.
According to this article from www.KaiserHealthNews.org, “Health Bills In Congress Won’t Fix Doctor Shortage”, there will be a shortage of 40,000 Primary Care physicians by 2019, that will climb to 160,000, 2025.
There are various incentives, such as increasing Medicare payments, providing tax incentives, and subsidies, etc, to teaching hospitals, and students, etc, but, according to the article, none of the proposals will affect the “primary care pipeline”.
If health care reform passes, especially if all Americans are required to purchase health care insurance, there will be a significant decrease in the quality of health care due to waits.
The Primary Care Physician is the Gate Keeper of our health care system. They feed the rest of the system. If you can’t see your Primary doctor, then you’re never going to get to see a specialist.
And if you have to wait three months, or six months, or, whatever, to 
see your Primary doctor, how does that improve your health care ? What happens if you have an urgent, or chronic need for treatment, and you can’t even get in to see your doctor for months ?
The doctor shortage is a serious problem.
It takes roughly nine to twelve years to educate a doctor. Even if the plan can entice individuals into becoming doctors, through proposed grants, and financial aid, isn’t there going to be a massive shortage of doctors for many, many years ?
Won’t it be more difficult to entice individuals into becoming doctors if the ultimate financial reward is diluted, and reduced, and controlled, by a government program that is supposed to reduce costs ? If I were a young person considering a career as a doctor, I sure would have to think long, and hard, before I would give-up nine to twelve precious years of my life, for an uncertain, and/or small financial benefit.
If I were a young person facing such a decision, I think I would opt to become an attorney, rather than a doctor, for several reasons:
1) I can be a practicing attorney in eight years, often less.
2) The financial rewards are great, and virtually unlimited; the government will not be controlling my income.
3) There is no “life and death” responsibility.
3) There is little exposure to personal/malpractice liability.
4) Malpractice cases will explode because there are more people in the health care system, and the system is destined to lower the quality of health care.
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Maybe the government could implement a fast-track system of training doctors. Instead of four year of Medical School, maybe we could
2 Year Medical School Grad
Or maybe we can import doctors from other countries, and provide interpreters for the patients.
Let’s face it, as President Obama made clear, some sacrifices will have to be made in order to implement a massive health care plan. If that means that our doctors are not first-class, then, so be it.
And that is just my opinion.
Spencer Holly
www.angrycalifornian.com
0074
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OTHER RESOURCES
National Doctor Shortage Putting Patients at Risk – CBN.com
“People are going to have to wait..”
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Physician Shortage and Health Care Reforms – 8
(July 2009)
