My (our) Problem with Obamacare!

[CUSP82 Administrator Admin of the Month Dec 2014PEGym Hero Find all posts View Profile Close CUSP82]

Okay so someone told me on another thread when I made a comment about Obamacare to say what I really felt. Well since it has been a bit quiet around here why not create some controversy and hard feelings. I will put out one point at a time on this thread, get some feedback, and then move on to the next point. Feel free to comment about the point I just made before we got into the next point and so on and so on and so on. Let me preface this by saying that I do believe that all should have access to healthcare, it's how we do it and we go about it that needs to be looked at and refined.


Problem Number 1- not enough doctors!

Okay so they passed a law that as of 2014 30 million or more people will have healthcare coverage and be able to go to the doctor. Now that's a great idea isn't it? Now the last time you went to your doctors office how long did you wait? I know the guy just overbooks to make himself lots of money ( although we are not talking about money in this segment) and that's why you waited 2 hours in his office. Well some do that; some also book their normal amount of patients for the day and add in 6 or 7 emergency patients that must be seen ( and take time) and there you have your wait. Now let's add 30 million more that never went to the doc because they didn't have coverage and now that they have it whammo off they go to the doc whether they need to or not even for the slightest thing. Well when you call your doc for an appointment now and he tells you there are no openings for three weeks what do you think will happen when you add 30 million more people to the mix with the main thing this law never took into account; the number of doctors!

My state, New York, did a study about the healthcare needs of our state with the coming of Obamacare and estimated that NY state is short 25,000 primary care physcians. With the influx of many new people coming into the healthcare system at one time nobody thought of how you would increase the number of doctors to take care of people. They don't grow on trees. The only solution my state has is to allow physicians assistants and nurses to take over more of the role in healthcare. So guess what; you may not see a doctor for what ails you because they're not enough of them so a nurse will diagnose you. Well we know that doctors make a lot of mistakes and they do have better more in depth training than do pa's and nurses. How many more mistakes will these folks make? I don't even want to know. Now if you really insist on seeing the doctor you will either wait 6 weeks for an appointment, in which time you could be dead, wait 2 weeks to see a nurse or pa, or you could just run off to the emergency room at your local hospital which will be far more crowed then then they are now and sit there and die and that's what the law wanted to stop;; everyone going to the emergency room for a cold. Hell we just increased it!

My state has discussed the idea of lessening the starndard placed upon doctors from forgien medical schools in order to fill the shortage. Gee that's what I want; some guy who went to a forgien med school not being held to the same standard as one educated in the USA. Talk about quality medicine huh? Even by lessening the standard for docs in my state and having auxiallaries do more of the work my state estimates it will take at least 10 years to entice enough doctors to come to New York to make up the shortfall. I guess I'm not going to get sick for the next ten years!

[Pegasus AdministratorPE Gym EditorPEGym Hero ☺ Admin of the Month Mar 2015 Find all posts View Profile Close Pegasus]

People in developed countries think the U.s. is quite weird.

[Dontrike Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Dontrike]

Because we are quite weird.

[Going411x7 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Going411x7]

"Quite weird" is an understatement, Peg. We'e one of the most fucked up, arrogant, socially
backward countries in the developed world.

[Dontrike Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Dontrike]

That is quite true.

[thenewdude Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close thenewdude]

"Quite weird" is an understatement, Peg. We'e one of the most fucked up, arrogant, socially
backward countries in the developed world.

Ditto that!

[KingofNY Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close KingofNY]

Like it or not, right or wrong, this country was built on the ideals that for the most part, the Republican Party represents. The people spoke against what this country was built on and today we as a nation are paying the price. This country has a lot of smart people and a few more stupid people. Unfortunately majority rules

[SydKitty Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close SydKitty]

"Quite weird" is an understatement, Peg. We'e one of the most fucked up, arrogant, socially
backward countries in the developed world.

Sad truth. I won't be here 10 years from now, if things go right.

[Captain Jack Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Captain Jack]

Like it or not, right or wrong, this country was built on the ideals that for the most part, the Republican Party represents. The people spoke against what this country was built on and today we as a nation are paying the price. This country has a lot of smart people and a few more stupid people. Unfortunately majority rules

Wow. Pretty bold statement there, King. Doesn't really contribute much to the discussion, though. Then again, gross over-generalizations rarely offer anything of merit to a conversation like this. Interesting thread otherwise, guys.

[JStars Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close JStars]

Pegasus,

Got to agree with you. Looking in from the outside at the USA from a foreign country (Massachusetts) .. the USA usually looks and acts like a bunch of crazy yahoos.

J

[namsokiek Banned Find all posts View Profile Close namsokiek]

So politicians decide for many reasons that everyone should have insurance which will reduce the costs of healthcare. However, we live in capitalistic and litigation society. Litigation increases insurance costs. Capitalism recognizes that when demand exceeds capacity, that price will go up. So the largest cost to the doctor doesn't go down but the demand on the doctor's time goes up. As CUSP82 mentioned, it takes about 10 yrs to get a fully trained doctor so the only short term solution to high costs is to accept lower quality of healthcare until there are enough doctors to fulfill the demand.

Another example of politicians increasing demand for a commodity with an inelastic supply is college education. Someone believes that everyone should go to college and to do this they provide or increase student loans. It takes years to add capacity to an existing curriculum and even longer to accredit a new curriculum. But with funding there are more people applying for school. Greater demand for the same number of student slots drives the price up... which happens year after year. Another unintended consequence of easily accessible funds for tuition is the proliferation of people holding nearly useless degrees...what the hell do you do with a masters in art history that costs you $150K to complete?

Politicians decide that owning a house is better than renting so they incentivise it by offering tax deductions for mortgage interest and tax deduction for first time home owners. Since first-time home owners don't purchase their home with cash, the tax credit is essentially an incentive or reward to go into debt. The interest deduction not only incentivises debt, but the reward increases as the debt increases. So people are encouraged to go deeper into debt. This increases the number of people willing to buy a house, which pushes housing prices up. Concurrently, the demand for high costs loans generates enormous incentives for loan providers to grant high loans...then the bubble bursts.

1993 Politicians (Clinton) decide that CEOs should not be paid more than $1M/yr so they create tax penalties for companies which do this. Since stock options are not considered pay, CEO compensation shifts from cash to stock options. S&P 500 index grows from $113 to $440 from 1982 to 1995 then from $440 to $1500 from 1995 to 2000. Curiously enough, CEO compensation dwarfs previous amounts because they figure out how to make stock prices work for them...then the bubble bursts.

The list can grow and grow. The common theme is that when politicians try to change or manipulate a purely economic issue, they encourage something else in the economy which is usually worse.

[firestorm31 Member Find all posts View Profile Close firestorm31]

interesting. this doesn't address the number of doctors leaving the field early because of obamacare.

[CUSP82 Administrator Admin of the Month Dec 2014PEGym Hero Find all posts View Profile Close CUSP82]

Well this seems like a hot topic and since we talk about everything else here who wants to rant or start a fight?

[CUSP82 Administrator Admin of the Month Dec 2014PEGym Hero Find all posts View Profile Close CUSP82]

Well I'll just start the ball rolling. My healthcare plan, of which costs me 13,000 a year, has been deemed by some dope to be substandard because it doesn't contain maternity care, well baby care, and pediatric care. Well it seems no one in my house can get pregnant anymore, I have no real little kids, but I now have to pay for what I don't need and the reason is what?????

[somebodyelse Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close somebodyelse]

Sad truth. I won't be here 10 years from now, if things go right.

Real life, I'm trying to get out of here before they undo child labor laws and overtime compensation pay...

Oops, they're already going after one...
Alabama Republican Introduces Bill to Eliminate Overtime Pay - LGF Pages


*Sigh* If I can figure out how to get my mom to stop being scared of international travel, I'm leaving this country FAR behind. There's plenty of nations worse, don't get me wrong, but there's an increasing number of Developed Countries out pacing and surpassing the US... it doesn't happen in 4 years. It doesn't happen in 8 years... it doesn't happen in 16 years... It happens over the course of 30-40 years and it's been happening since the 70s. That's what this country has been doing to itself... Making it population dumber by not investing in education (Illiteracy in America) By these farm subsidies, we're chasing a Phantom "Cancer" epidemic in our country without concentrating on the MAIN poisoner of the population... Processed foods... (Sodium Benzoate is a carcinogen)

There's a lot of things wrong with the US.

I have a friend from Scotland. He's been here for 2 years... his first year here, he was a typical european build, thin and tall. I saw him a year later and he'd gained what looked to be 50lbs. maybe even 60. It's something you can't really understand until you look at our food supply... Big corporations poison and work Americans to death and all they can say is "Please sir give me more."

Just saying, You can be mad at healthcare but be more upset at the wing of the government that stands behind business interests instead of behind public interest because they're the ones selling you up the river.