General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Medicare for All’ would cover everyone, save billions in first year: new study [View all]twitr_patter
(1 post)Existing Medicare patients cannot easily find a doctor in many cities because Medicare doesn't pay enough to make it worthwhile for the doctor to treat them. Some of you I am sure think the solution to that is to force the doctors to treat them. Such coercion is illegal, but don't let that stop you. Consider instead the huge difference between what the government promised with Obamacare - rates will go down, you can keep your doctor, etc - and it turns out those things (and lots of others) aren't true. Also consider the excellent record of the Veterans Administration hospitals. It's true the VA isn't killing as many patients these days as they used to, but then it's been a long time since we've seen articles complimenting the VA on good care. Think about this. Drop a lot of new patients on a medical system which is already short doctors. Pay the doctors less to treat them. Do you seriously think that will result in wonderful medicine? How long are you prepared to wait for an appointment - which is the problem with medicine in Europe and Canada. People smart enough to be doctors are smart enough to do something that pays more than medicine in those places, and that's what will happen here. The proposed system is expected to "save" 592 billion dollars. From where is that money coming? Hospitals? Doctors? They're going to add 44 million new patients, chop over a half-trillion from current spending, and have money left over. Yep - that seems logical to me - especially given how wonderfully the Obamacare program is rolling out. Health care is a legitimate issue, and legitimate issues require legitimate solutions. Adding tens of millions of patients and cutting a half-trillion in spending isn't likely to be such a solution.