You can keep your doctor, but will your doctor keep YOU?
By AnjaP
@Rollo1 (16676)
Boston, Massachusetts
August 9, 2009 9:53am CST
Ways that the health care reform will impact your medical care and the health care system:
1. The government is authorized to severely underpay hospitals and doctors just as they do with Medicare and Medicaid. Underpaying medical bills means that competitors will either have to change their payment rates to match the federal plan or go out of business. Your choice of plan then vanishes.
2. Because of lower payments, doctors and hospitals will eventually have to restrict care to what the government will pay for. Expensive diagnostic testing and medical services will stop being offered even when needed because government payments won't sufficiently cover them.
3. The supply of doctors, surgeons and specialists will also decline. You can keep your doctor, says Obama, but will your doctor keep you?
4. Fewer doctors mean longer lines, longer waits for tests, treatment and general visits.
5. Your employer coverage will probably end up being the public option as well, so if you like your plan, you may not be able to keep it as your employer will stop offering it. It will end up cheaper in the long run for the employer to offer you the public plan than to keep paying their share of your HMO or PPO plans.
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2009/08/07/peter-ferrara-new-study-obama-health-pla/
2 responses
@whiteheather39 (24403)
• United States
9 Aug 09
I keeps getting worse and worse and too much like what I remember it being like in the UK.
@spalladino (17891)
• United States
9 Aug 09
Rollo, why is it that most doctors and all hospitals currently accept the Medicare/Medicaid assignment if they pay so little? Also, why do they accept Blue Cross/Blue Shield payment assignments? I took my husband outside of the V.A. medical system when his carotid artery was 90% clogged and let my BC/BS coverage through my job cover his care. The statements I received afterwards listed the hospital's fee as well as what the BC/BS payment was. There was a noticeable difference in the amounts yet we weren't expected to pay the difference. This included ultrasound and other disgnostic tests as well as the surgery itself, the surgeon's and anesthesiologist's fees, and his hospital stay. The surgeon accepted the BC/BS assignment at both the before and follow-up office visits. My point is that, if these programs are already severely underpaying doctors and hospitals, why are they accepting them and why haven't they already been driven out of business since this has been going on for decades?
