Universal Healthcare Update

One obvious next step will likely involve firearms and the second amendment.
The idea would be to claim that ownership of such was
"bad for your health" and deny or restrict health care to firearm owners.

What’s health care without doctors?
By Bill O’Reilly
Sunday, March 21, 2010 - Added 1d 20h ago


If Obamacare becomes law, about 30 percent of the primary-care doctors in America will consider leaving the medical profession.

That bit of brightness comes from a survey by The Medicus Firm, the results of which were posted by The New England Journal of Medicine. Medicus interviewed more than a thousand American physicians, and 55 percent of them believe the quality of medical care in America will decline if the Democrats pass the current health-care reform proposals. Apparently, many of them want no part of it.

Although the media largely ignored the Medicus study, the story is huge. Perhaps as many as 30 million more Americans may have access to health insurance. The question is: Who will treat them?

The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects a 22 percent increase in practicing physicians over the next decade. But that will not be enough to treat the universal health-care crush, especially if a bunch of doctors now on the job pack it in.

There are essentially two reasons why Obamacare nauseates some doctors. First, control. Medical people simply do not want federal pinheads telling them how to treat their patients. The medical profession attracts intelligent, assertive people who are motivated to help others. This is not a docile crowd.

Second, money. Right now, many doctors are already seeing too many patients in order to pay the bills and provide a decent living for their families. Obamacare does nothing to bring down the outrageous expense of medical malpractice insurance, and it is likely to cut Medicaid and Medicare reimbursements.

Doctors can do the math. Their expenses remain high; their incomes decline. Again, these are smart people who could make good money doing something else.

In Canada and Great Britain, where socialized medicine is practiced, it is difficult to actually see a doctor in some places. Instead, nurses, physician assistants and other medical personnel fill the need. That is what could happen in the United States if the feds begin calling the health-care shots.

Not since the Iraq war has America been so divided on an issue. Yes, ideology is playing a part. Conservatives despise government intrusion in the marketplace, but liberals love it. Right now, however, most polls show that the majority has turned on Obamacare. The latest Wall Street Journal poll, for example, found 48 percent opposing and just 36 percent supporting.

Here’s my question: What would Marcus Welby, M.D., and Dr. Kildare say? These guys usually had the answers, back when wise doctors were the subjects of TV programs and health care seemed to be a glamorous profession.

Would Ben Casey support Obamacare? We know the “M*A*S*H” guys would. Dr. Jekyll might like it, but Mr. Hyde? I don’t know.

What I do know is that many Americans are sick of the whole health-care thing. And no prescription on earth will change that.

The prediction is that your present carrier goes under and you end up under government healthcare. That's what Rush and everybody else has been saying.

gungasnake wrote:

The prediction is that your present carrier goes under and you end up under government healthcare. That's what Rush and everybody else has been saying.

Oh.. so you are saying the free market doesn't work?

huh... that's an interesting argument there gunga.

One obvious next step will likely involve firearms and the second amendment.
The idea would be to claim that ownership of such was
"bad for your health" and deny or restrict health care to firearm owners

The prediction is that your present carrier goes under and you end up under government healthcare. That's what Rush and everybody else has been saying.

But Perón failed to sustain these progressive changes over the long haul. All of the gains of the Perón era have disappeared as workers' lives and fortunes have gone downhill. What happened?

Basically Perón failed because his reforms were not radical enough. For example, although he raised rural wages and forced landlords to sell cheap to the AIPE, he refused to take the next step when they balked. He did not nationalize the land. Thus, the amount of land under cultivation dropped from nearly 22 million hectares in 1934-38 to just over 17 million in 1955. What you had was a producer's strike, not that much different from the kind Allende was confronted by.

Bill O'Reilly is simply wrong...

The seeds of inspiration toward a kinder more compassionate America are being sown by the democratic party...