For all the times that President Obama promised “you’ll get to keep your doctor” under his health-care reforms, he apparently failed to ask any practicing doctors.
A recent survey finds that countless MDs will respond to ObamaCare by limiting which patients they’ll see.
The Physicians Foundation asked 2,400 doctors and American Medical Association members what they thought of the new law; a full 67 percent were against it.
More important, it asked how they’d cope with the new rules (which don’t fully kick in until 2014). Sixty percent said they feel compelled to “close or significantly restrict their practices to certain categories of patients.” And 59 percent said the “reform” would oblige them to spend less time with the patients they do have.
Of course, many doctors already limit how many patients they’ll take on who depend on government insurance (whose fees rarely cover an MD’s costs). But it’ll get worse under ObamaCare: In the survey, some 87 percent said they would significantly restrict Medicare patients and 93 percent said they’d significantly restrict Medicaid patients.
How can the government claim its health programs are popular when folks who would actually deliver care are running away? I’m not worried about physicians (we’ll find ways to survive), but about our patients.
All in all, the survey found that 74 percent of doctors will alter how they practice.
To stay in business under ObamaCare, doctors will have to adjust. Some will see fewer patients themselves and hire nurse practitioners to help carry the load; others will work part-time and supplement their income elsewhere. Many will join groups or become salaried employees of hospitals or clinics.
I practice medicine alone, something ObamaCare intentionally makes more difficult. Physicians like me are going to become harder and harder to find, at least, ones who’ll take your insurance. Many MDs will join the growing group of “boutique” doctors who’ll only see patients who pay cash up front.
That trend is no solution. Because it lacks even the oversight of insurers, this group includes many charlatans and hucksters who promote questionable treatments. Yes, it’ll also have plenty of solid physicians as ObamaCare hits home — but that’s just creating a two-tier system of health care, with good care for those who can afford it and second-rate care by overstressed MDs for the rest of America.
The sad thing is we do need genuine health reform. The survey also found 69 percent of doctors saying they already lack the time or resources to see new patients.
The politicians who supported the health-reform law suggested that you have a talk with your doctor about how aggressively you’d like to be treated if you become deathly ill. Here’s another question: Ask your doctor if he or she will still be around when that unfortunate time comes.
Marc Siegel is an internist practicing in New York and a Fox News medical contributor.