Obamacare changes the health care system in several ways that harm physicians. It also fails to address the pivotal issues facing physicians today—for example, low government reimbursement rates that fail to cover the cost of care, or the need for state-by-state medical malpractice reform. It should have come as a surprise, then, that during the health care reform debate, the American Medical Association (AMA) emerged as one of the new law’s supporters. But rather than symbolizing physicians’ support for the left’s health care overhaul, the AMA’s stance on Obamacare just …
The American Medical Association lost 5 percent of its membership last year as the physician group faced fallout from its endorsement of Obamacare and refusal to retreat from the law’s most controversial provisions. As physicians and medical school students back away from the well-known organization, they’re turning to upstarts like Docs4PatientCare and the Benjamin Rush Society, two alternatives to the AMA. Docs4PatientCare maintains contact with about 4,000 physicians who are primarily concerned about preserving the doctor-patient relationship. Many of them became active after the AMA’s endorsement of Obamacare in 2009. …
Dr. Martha Boone doesn’t hide her displeasure with Obamacare. She was opposed to the law long before President Obama signed it one year ago and remains critical of it today. She spoke at Heritage this week about its impact on doctors. One story Boone shared shed light on the challenges government-run health care has created with her patients. She spoke of an incident involving a Medicare patient with stress incontinence, a condition that can be treated by one of two operations. The first operation takes 15 minutes, is not invasive …
On Monday, The Heritage Foundation hosted a panel of current and future physicians to discuss the impact of Obamacare on their profession. Their remarks highlighted the importance of the doctor-patient relationship as the heart of the practice of medicine and detailed direct threats as a result of the new health law. Representative Michael Burgess, M.D., (R-TX) explained that part of being a physician is fighting for the best interests of each individual patient. Under Obamacare, this will be harder to do, as government inserts itself further into the provision of …
Earlier this week we shared the troubling circumstances facing Dr. Martha Boone in the wake of Obamacare. Last night the Atlanta urologist appeared on Fox Business with David Asman to talk about the latest challenge for her small practice — a 27 percent increase in health insurance for her five employees. In the interview, Boone explains the difficulties for doctors. Medicare is reimbursing less for her most common procedure, prompting her to move to a less expensive office in an older building. She also cut her own salary by …
Dr. Martha Boone is no ordinary urologist. For more than a year she has led a grassroots campaign against Obamacare — and for good reason. Boone’s livelihood depends on it. As the House prepares to vote on repeal today, Boone is struggling with the consequences of the law. Just this week, for example, she learned the cost of health insurance for her five employees was increasing 27 percent. How will she cover the increase? It’s a question weighing on her mind. We traveled to Atlanta last year to speak to …
No one is more familiar with the health care system than doctors. So what do they have to say about Obamacare? Nothing good, according to a recent survey. The Physicians Foundation found that “rather than a sign of progress, the survey suggests that most physicians view health reform as a further erosion of the unfavorable conditions with which they must contend.” Furthermore, Obamacare “has further disengaged doctors from their profession, with potentially negative consequences for both the medical profession and for the quality and accessibility of medical care in the …
Congressional Quarterly is reporting that the United States Senate is going to enact a one-month reprieve for Medicare physicians, saving them once again from a draconian reduction in Medicare payment. This entire system is a mess. Under the existing Medicare payment formula (the Sustainable Growth Rate, or SGR) for doctors that the Senate and their House colleagues enacted in 1997, physician reimbursement is tied to the performance of the general economy. If in any given year Medicare physician payment outpaces the growth in the general economy, there is an automatic …
The United States faces a major physician shortage, and it will only get worse. Aging baby boomers will create a growing demand for medical services at the same time Obamacare comes on line with its new demands. Complicating matters is the fact that many physicians are also baby boomers—meaning part of the solution will increasingly become part of the problem. The Washington Post reports that nearly 40% of doctors are 55 or older and a third of all nurses are over the age of 50. These boomers are on the …
The negative effects of Obamacare will impact every American. However, it is those who are the very backbone of the United States’ high-quality health care system who will be most severely affected: physicians. In a recent paper, Heritage’s health policy expert Robert Moffit, Ph.D., details the changes American doctors can expect to see in the way they practice medicine as a result of the recently-passed law. Moffit outlines the following as being most detrimental to the practice of medicine: Medicaid Expansion and Payment. As it is, doctors receive heavily reduced …
