Val Willingham at CNN writes “nearly half the respondents in a survey of U.S. primary care physicians said that they would seriously consider getting out of the medical business within the next three years if they had an alternative.” Many cite the red tape of insurance and government reimbursement and soaring costs of malpractice insurance as their biggest issues. According to the American Medical Association, the United States is staring at a shortage of nearly 40,000 primary care physicians within twenty years. According to the article, the universal healthcare plan proposed by the Obama Administration is likely to further increase the strain on an already fragile system.
Random thought:
With an aging US baby boomer population, a shortage of primary care physicians poses a massive problem. Instead of insuring everyone so that they can go see doctors who no longer exist, how about actually fixing the healthcare delivery system? I refuse to believe that the cost of providing healthcare has truly risen so dramatically faster than inflation. Instead of throwing more money after a bad process by massively increasing the size of the insured pool without fixing the system, let’s actually solve the problem. Let’s implement the wellness and preventative medicine programs that are so drastically needed in this country. Let’s work on tort reform to limit malpractice claims against doctors we so desperately need. Let’s work on intelligent legislation that helps to fix the already-spiraling-out-of-control healthcare costs imposed upon us.
Post a Comment