I hope one of my colleagues is in the audience at tonight’s debate to ask a question about how ObamaCare is taking medicine in the wrong direction.
You see, there comes a point where we doctors can no longer afford to stay in practice. We rely on an unfettered environment to provide creative health-care solutions. This is why survey after survey (most recently one by The Physician’s Foundation) show that ObamaCare is highly unpopular among physicians.
Under ObamaCare, we’re being asked to provide the same high-tech service with more restrictions and regulations to more patients and to be paid less for doing so.
Do you honestly think that a cardiologist who is being paid $280 by Medicare for performing and interpreting the same echocardiogram he was paid $560 for two years ago is happy?
How do you think he will feel if the test he trained for many years to learn is suddenly ruled excessive by ObamaCare’s new Medicare Independent Payment Advisory Board?
ObamaCare probably means fewer doctors, too. In the Physicians Foundation Survey of 13,000-plus physicians, more than half plan on cutting back on patients, switching to cash only or quitting over the next three years — thanks largely to the president’s “reform.” Indeed, 60 percent say they’ll retire if they can.
Doctors don’t see their opposition to ObamaCare as political, but rather a justified response to being manipulated without our permission. We may be a special interest group, but many doctors don’t feel that the American Medical Association, which supported ObamaCare, truly represents our interests. That’s why only 15 percent of practicing physicians are AMA members.
It is hardly surprising that a new Jackson Healthcare survey of over 3,000 doctors shows that 55 percent of doctors surveyed plan to vote for Mitt Romney, and only 36 percent support President Obama.
Mind you, while 35 percent of the physicians surveyed identified themselves as Republicans, 24 percent were Democrats and 26 percent were independent, thus it’s significant that a majority are voting for Romney.
The reason for the change is the Affordable Care Act. A full 55 percent of doctors surveyed said they’d repeal and replace it, as Romney says he would, compared to only 40 percent who said they’d implement and improve it.
Doctors have every reason to vote against the mastermind behind a law that makes it harder for us to practice medicine. Our concerns should not be taken lightly.
We may be a relatively small special interest group, but we happen to be attached to one of the largest groups: our patients.
Dr. Marc K. Siegel is a professor of medicine and medical director of Doctor Radio at NYU Langone Medical Center, and a Fox News medical correspondent.