What's Da Buzz?

I have written in the past about how there is a three way fight between Insurance companies, Doctors and Pharmaceutical companies. Well, I left out a complicating factor in all of this. That would be the joys of government intervention into the medical industry.

If we turn to the US Constitution, there are no powers outlined that give the legal permission to the Congress or the President to get into the workings of the medical industry. Silly things such as the supreme law of the land don’t stop them though.

Courtesy of numerous Federal regulations and requirements and HMO’s, the USA is in danger of losing half of their primary care physicians. Sixty percent do not recommend getting into the medicine career because of it.

To quote this article:

“The survey, released by the Physicians’ Foundation, which promotes better doctor-patient relationships, found that many family doctors and internists are overwhelmed with their practices – not because of too many patients, but too much red tape generated from insurance companies and government agencies.”

A primary care physician is the initial doctors you see for the variety of things that can send you to a clinic for medical aid. A shortage of these doctors would require bringing in more foreign doctors via immigration. One other answer that is being used is not seeing Medicaid and Medicare patients. The reasoning for this is it cuts out a large portion of paperwork and very low compensation for services. Medicare / Medicaid only permit payment of $0.18-$0.19 per dollar of the normal bill. That shifts the burden to the rest of us with jobs as insurance companies get hit for $0.80-$0.90 per dollar. Once again, working hard is penalized to pay for promises of the government who butted in.

But hey, there is a new health care plan from the new Presidential administration being proposed for everyone to have insurance. There just happen to be a few problems with it. Per the article in the link, there is no possible way it can mathematically work. They risk driving doctors out of the medical field, radically raising unemployment, or bankrupting the nation. Requiring small businesses to provide insurance or be forced to pay into a system will be more than what most businesses can afford. With the threats of tax hikes, nearly every small business owner will not be expanding their businesses. If the taxes go up, they will be forced to fire employees. If the health care plan goes through, they will be forced to fire employees to remain in business.

To think that the Federal Government can run health care better than the private market is overlooking other crucial details. They can’t control the ones they already have in the FDA, Medicare and Medicaid. Their poor controls have people dying. One side is paying for deadly drugs to be administered when the FDA is supposed to stop such drugs from going to market.

In my opinion, the government would be far better off cleaning up the mess they have already made and get back to following the law as it is written. Dealing with cases like a “world-renowned” child psychiatrists dishonestly being paid by pharmaceutical companies to distort test results so more children can be drugged with psychiatric drugs is a good start.

Thank you,

Anah

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