As 10 minutes have just opened on my schedule and I didn’t get lunch, I’m taking 10 minutes of a philosophical smoke break. Here is my question:
Obviously I am in support of the ACA from what would be viewed as the left side because I believe in universal healthcare. I’m even more of a socialist here as that I don’t believe that healthcare should be a for-profit business but that is a larger issue. We live in a capitalist society where health care is for the most part for-profit. Doctors pay to be educated (at great expense), Medical innovations cost money, blah blah blah.
Many uninsured folks who had held off medical care until begrudgingly (and without insurance) would resort to emergency rooms will now have insurance so they do not have to wait until emergency care is needed. The offered solution there is to go to a PCP who they are now insured to see.
The statistic I am now seeing is that we as a nation have a dearth of PCPs. In general Primary Care doesn’t pay as much as specialization and even doctors are having problems covering medical education costs as PCPs and thus are choosing specialization.
So even though you now have insurance, there aren’t doctors available to take you on as a PCP and you are left still needing to use the emergency room as a first line of medical care.
While the long range fix I see is like the Peace Corps or the GI Bill where if you do service as a PCP in conjunction with being a specialist, the gov’t pays some of your medical education.
So… My questions to my other “labeled leftist friends”:
Are these statistics and observations accurate or merely more ‘Anti-Obamacare’ rhetoric?
Does this actually form the grounds of a problem with the ACA that does require further intelligent investigation and legislation? (Yes, don’t say it… I’m thinking it too)
Does this run the risk of the ACA actually causing problems that even the left can say, “We need to fix this, too”?
Of course this is a deep post and even putting it on FB and Twitter isn’t likely to get anyone to read or respond to it.
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It’s a real problem but age and population growth have much more to do with it than does Obamacare. See http://annfammed.org/content/10/6/503.full. So blaming Obamacare for the PCP shortage is (mostly) FUD. Hope this helps.
Agreed. The shortage of health care providers (not just docs–nurses, pharmacists, lab techs, etc.) was an issue that the hospital association I worked for was talking about in 2001. It’s a perfect storm–boomers aging (and thus needing more medical care), fewer people choosing the professions. not enough capacity in the education programs at public schools & not enough financial aid at the private ones, not enough qualified health educators, retention issues for employers, payer mix issues for docs (Medicaid & Medicare pay a percentage of *costs* not charges, so having too many patients on thos programs can bankrupt a med practice), and the list goes on.