One of the issues whispered about in relation to health reform is the looming shortage of primary care physicians. Who is going to take care of the hundreds of thousands of new patients who will have health insurance? It’s a serious problem and one that we should agree to tackle together. Across the state, too few primary care physicians are signing up for participation in the MassHealth and Commonwealth Care plans because of low reimbursement. It certainly doesn’t help that the federal government issued an ill-considered proposed rule that would eliminate federal Medicaid matching funds for graduate medical education – amounting to a $40 million cut in training Massachusetts physicians. While the Bush Administration is trying to get this done, Congress is wisely pursuing a moratorium on its implementation – a possible reprieve. It’s a shortsighted approach that needs to be rejected. This rule would reverse Medicaid’s historic commitment to train physicians that serve in America’s hospitals. We should be training more, not fewer. The shortage doesn’t apply to all physicians across all specialties. But, the problem is particularly acute for the very doctors we need the most – primary care physicians. Even medical students, faced with hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, look at the prospects of incomes for primary care physicians versus a specialty and they, more often than not, choose the specialty. Add in the high cost of housing in Massachusetts and you begin to see why we are facing a shortage. The Massachusetts Medical Society rang the alarm bell about this last year. Health reform has only made the problem more acute. We want everyone to have access to a primary care physician. That is one of the promises of health reform. The question is: Will we be able to deliver?
Michael V. Sack is the President and CEO of Hallmark Health
That line of observation assumes that these hundreds of thousands of new patients (they’re not people with economic and critical self-determination–they’re “patients”) being salivated over do not already seek medical attention when necessary.
The fact that, most often by responsible choice, they are not at present plugged at the hip into a continuous, mandatory, expensive, corporate medical-industrial complex doesn’t necessarily mean there would be any but a marginal increase in demand for its services.
This retailproductpackage pseudo-care that is being forced down their throats does at least two things: it needlessly robs them of hard earned dollars that could otherwise be used for an only-occasionally necessary procedure over which they have financial control without being yanked around by corporate claims adjusters; and a large portion of those hard earned dollars ends up in the pockets of costly and duplicated overhead as well as overcompensated executives and shareholders.
All while the corporate medical-industrial complex builds out to feast on cream in the suburbs.
Get the sense people don’t want to be owned?
I’ve got a business idea I’ve been knocking around.
We’re big-box stores that sell nothing but flotation devices. We’re all over, ubiquitous–publicly traded too–and we sell everything from inner tubes to houseboats. You may not need a flotation device in your lifetime, but if you do, we’re the store to see.
Here’s our edge though: We want the state legislature to create a mandatory monthly club fee that everyone must pay whether or not they want a flotation device. Our lowest fee is several hundred dollars (and from there into the thousands). But if you come in to actually purchase an inner tube, we’ll haggle you on the price. A radio beacon? Forget it.
You know but, because of all these new hundreds of thousands of potential flotation device customers, we think we’re looking at a shortage of salesmen.
Too bad this post comes across as touting healthcare insurance and its ability to improve access to needed care as a commercial product. I think this impression is because the author signs off as “…CEO…”. That CEO’s are pitching the reform plan speaks volumes about the approach that this Mass. health reform law is taking.
This law is taking us down the wrong road. Healthcare should not be treated as a commodity; it is a human service and a public good that is essential to life and dignity.
Together we can re-chart the harmful and wasteful course of the Mass. “reform plan” to instead create a healthcare system that is people and community-centered, and that is MUCH MORE cost effective.
Please learn more and join this work at http://www.DefendHealth.org
and http://www.MassCare.org/legislation
or on the national level visit http://www.MedicareForAll.net
Thank you.
P.S. I meant to also mention the fact that Nurse Practitioners (NP’s) can provide excellent, holistic and person-centered primary care. I’ve had one for over 20 years!
To learn more about NP’s visit http://www.mcnpweb.org/
Just for kicks why doesn’t someone calculate how many doctors we will need when the baby boomers (pushing 60) reach age 70 and inevitably need more care. Since it takes almost ten years to fully train a physician these days we could figure how many new medical schools this state needs to open – STAT
FYI Mr. President and CEO,
Many docs are definately not signing on for the faux health care reform for many reasons of which I am privy to one: the requirement to take on a vast number of patients per year at extremely low payments which means that some docs wouldn’t be able to support their families.
Will also add that specialists at some of the finest hospital and clinics in MA are not signing on for whatever their reasons are. This means that anyone enrolling in one of the crummy HMOs mandated by Chapter 58 will not have continuum of care if they’ve been seeing a specialist who doesn’t sign on.
This is a definate deterrment to gaining enrollees among other blatant problems with these HMOs, not the least of which is affordability. Individuals in MA who bring in, i.e., $24,000 gross per year can’t even pay their basic living expenses, nevermind the cost of the premiums and copays and the items not covered by these plans. And the penalty monies that will be stolen from those who do not enroll will also cause financial peril.
Maybe Bostonites earn more money but MA doesn’t stop at Rte. 128.
By the way, are you aware of the fact that small businesses have already started laying off people so they will have less than eleven employees?
According to the North Carolina Institute of Medicine, the state had 20.7 physicians for every 10,000 residents, which is about average among all 50 states. But North Carolina doctors are not evenly distributed. Eleven of the state’s 100 counties and parts of 40 other counties are experiencing physician shortages.
nice post thanks