With 40,000 Fewer Doctors Over Next Decade, US Health Care System About to Break Under Obamacare

Barack Obama and Democrats act like they've just won the Super Bowl or are going to Disneyland, but that begs the question, Why? Why are they acting with irrational exuberance over passing the Obamacare bill when it will only worsen the expected, 40,000 fewer primary care physicians that without the Obamacare bill are already expected across the country? Why are they acting with irrational exuberance over passing the Obamacare bill when it will only worsen the projected, 150,000 primary care physician shortfall that's expected to arrive by 2025? If you consider the fact that Obamacare will add another whopping, projected 32 million or so patients to the patient lists of the primary care physicians who are already disappearing like dinosaurs...well, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that the result won't be pretty.

Newly published reports over the last months keep solidifying the major healthcare problem that the US is facing, and making things particularly grim is the fact that no one's addressing the root of the problem-in fact, the US government under Obama is worsening it.

Half a year ago, the American Academy of Family Physicians released a projection that there will be a shortage of 40,000 primary care physicians over the next decade. Without even knowing the details behind the projection, that alone should've caused Obama to stop his ideological and arrogant drive to socialize the US health care system, because his plan calls for adding 32 million more patients to the system. Of course he didn't because he's an ideologue, not a leader. Several months earlier, in November 2008, the Association of American Medical Colleges reported that by 2025, there will be a shortage of a mind-numbing 150,000 primary care physicians!

Now with the miserable passage of Obamacare-against the will of the majority of Americans and with very low fanfare-the US system is about to break in the next decade or so all because of the provision in Obamacare to provide 32 million people with insurance. When I write "break," I mean in the following ways. Waiting times will clearly increase to where we're talking about the inferior care in Canada or France. The quality of the care from doctors will sharply decline because doctors are now overstretched, meaning they'll have to spend less time on you per visit. We're talking about doctors now basically being forced to do a rush job on patients during visits because they simply don't have the time to devote, as they should, to each patient.

Let's look at the infamy within the Democrat-ruled-and-controlled state of Massachusetts just to get a sour taste of what's ahead for the US, now that Romneyca-er, I mean-Obamacare has been signed into law. The foul brainchild of former governor Mitt Romney and an entitlement-minded, big government-loving Democrat legislature, "Romneycare" was passed in Massachusetts in 2006, and the results there have been anything but pretty; in fact, they've been downright reprehensible. Romneycare in Massachusetts imposes the same requirements that Obamacare will for the nation, only it does it on a state-wide basis. Similarities include mandatory health coverage and an imposed penalty in the form of higher taxes. For instance, with the requirement that basically all of Massachusetts residents have health coverage, almost half of all the state's family and general practitioners were not accepting new patients.

Let me put that in more striking, non-medical terms that the proverbial everyman can understand: You're screwed. If you live in Massachusetts and are looking for a family doctor or general practitioner, you had your options reduced by almost 50%. That meant that if you were looking to get a new one, you had to search harder, longer, and further than ever before, and when you did find one who finally took new patients...I bet the wait times and pathetically short visiting times you were subject to made you fiercely regret that Massachusetts ever passed Romneycare. Do those people then dare go out of state for care if they want quicker and more efficient service? Do they fly to-I don't know-France or Canada?

Now look to the impending future for the whole US in just a few years, when those 32 million, additional people will be moseying on to getting coverage (at your tax dollar expense, by the way, just adding insult to injury). Just think of the absolute failure of Romneycare in Massachusetts, but this time, nightmarishly, only on a lot bigger, more intrusive, national scale. The same longer wait times, the same shorter doctor's visits, the same higher taxes to harshly penalize you for failing to fall in line and obediently purchase government-mandated "coverage," and you have a pretty good, sad idea of what Obamacare will bring in just a few, short years.

To send Marc questions, praise, or criticism, e-mail him at marc_schenker@telus.net

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Sources:

AAFP Projects PCP Shortage Could Reach 40,000 By 2020, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

Emily P. Walker, Nation Faces Daunting Doctor Shortage, Medpagetoday.com

55% Favor Repeal of Health Care Bill, Rasmussen Reports

Massachusetts Health Care Reform, Wikipedia

Lauran Neergaard, Health overhaul likely to strain doctor shortage, AP