Monday, November 16, 2009

Talk to an RN About ObamaCare

Spent a bit of time with an RN over the weekend. Didn't know the person, setting was neutral (it wasn't a BitterClingers party.....)

That RN absolutely despises the ObamaCare/Pelosi plan and isn't real thrilled with the Baucus plot, either.

Major point that he made: there will be a serious MD shortage inside of 10 years--something which hasn't been brought up a lot, but since that RN spends time with a lot of docs, it would seem reasonably authoritative.

Second major point: there's no way in Hell that one can "bend the cost-curve downward" by reducing Medicare expenditures with the large cohort of Medicare-eligibles hitting the program in the next 10 years, short of simply depriving them of care. Hmmmmm. Same-o to forcibly adding ~30 million people to the insurance rolls, under any guise. That won't bring cost down per se; all it does is add future liabilities, at best. (It DOES increase revenues, but that increase will be offset in the intermediate and long-term with increased expenditures.)

There's agreement that the system is almost as sick as its patients. But at least anecdotally it seems that ObamaCare is not the remedy.

UPDATE: More of the same thoughts here, (scroll down to find 'MD shortage' grafs...)

2 comments:

Jay Bullock said...

there will be a serious MD shortage inside of 10 years--something which hasn't been brought up a lot,
A, this is actually addressed in all versions of the HCR bills from Dems, with incentives for, especially, more primary-care training and more frontline professionals.

B, even so, you have to wonder how those universal-cared other countries with similar Doc/civilian ratios to our present system manage to treat everyone with higher utilization rates and better outcomes than we get here.

Dad29 said...

and better outcomes

Specifics?

Or are you just regurgitating the non-valid statistical comparos put forth by Obama & Co., holding that longevity is connected to health-care?