Welcome to ObamaCare, Calpiggy. Reality sucks.

[thundley4]

CaliforniaPeggy (100,220 posts)

I had an MRI today...

Since I became eligible for Medicare, I've used it a lot. It's been great.

But I have to say I'm worried, since I'm hearing that every year, Medicare pays the doctors who accept Medicare patients less and less...

Some doctors have even opted out of accepting Medicare patients.

What's going to happen to these patients?

I'm so glad it's there for me...I want it to continue, and to be there for everyone...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021820843

GitRDun (282 posts)
1. You have just described the long term issue we face in medicine from a cost perspective

There are lots of things that can be done but the lobbies need to be shoved around enough to do them.

Everyone wants free stuff.  It disappears quickly.

spanone (68,963 posts)
2. i worry for my children....both in their 30's.....

Response to spanone (Reply #2)Wed Nov 14, 2012, 09:00 PM
 CaliforniaPeggy (100,220 posts)
5. As I do about mine....in their forties...not to mention my grandchildren ...

Response to CaliforniaPeggy (Original post)Wed Nov 14, 2012, 08:59 PM
 likesmountains 52 (2,765 posts)
3. I also worry that there are fewer physicians going into Family Practice.

They work so hard and their reimbursement is so small. I work in a hospital and most of the med students that rotate through are opting to be Emergency Room docs...no office, no overhead, decent pay. It's really sad.

Boy. You would have thought that someone would have foreseen the shortage of doctors.  Oh wait. We did you ****ing DUmmies.  OWN IT!!!

[Freeper]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021820843



Boy. You would have thought that someone would have foreseen the shortage of doctors.  Oh wait. We did you ****ing DUmmies.  OWN IT!!!

For us being a bunch of idiots we sure seem to figure out things more quickly than the DUmmies do. 

[Chris_]

CaliforniaPeggy (100,220 posts)

I had an MRI today...

Since I became eligible for Medicare, I've used it a lot. It's been great.

Just wait until everyone has their hands in the same cookie jar.  Yeah, it will be "great" alright.

[Boudicca]

Calpeggy, you're about past your expiration date, aren't you dear?  You know once the Obama death panels come into full effect your life is worth about as much as some Fluke like slut's unwanted fetus, don't you?
I worry about my kids and my grandson having to coexist in this new ****ed up crap world you idiot Dims have condemned us to by re-electing the worst president ever.

[shadeaux]

Didn't I read on the DUmp if you're wealthy in your old age you should give up Social Security ?

Peg is wealthy.  Why doesn't she pay her own way instead of TAKING from poor people ?

[thundley4]

The DUmmies think that healthcare is unfair now, just wait.  It will reach the point that the best doctors and hospitals will be cash only .

[Ralph Wiggum]

Just wait until she tries to finally do something about that pesky Adams Apple.

[thundley4]

Just wait until she tries to finally do something about that pesky Adams Apple.

She can move to San Fransicko for that.

San Francisco to Offer Taxpayer-Funded Sexual Mutilation

Allowing government to take over healthcare means that the sort of people who run the government will be making the decisions regarding funding priorities. This is good news for anyone who wants to use sexual mutilation to express an advanced state of psychiatric disease, and wants others to pick up the extravagant tab:

San Francisco is preparing to become the first U.S. city to provide and cover the cost of sex reassignment surgeries for uninsured transgender residents.

The city’s Health Commission voted Tuesday to create a comprehensive program for treating transgender people experiencing mental distress because of the mismatch between their bodies and their gender identities. San Francisco already provides transgender residents with hormones, counseling and routine health services, but has stopped short of offering surgical interventions, Public Health Director Barbara Garcia said Thursday after the vote was announced.

The idea for a new program that included surgeries came out of conversations between public health officials and transgender rights [i.e., perks and privileges] advocates who wanted mastectomies, genital reconstructions and other surgeries that are recommended for some transgender people covered under San Francisco’s 5-year-old universal health care plan.

Moonbattery

[Alpha Mare]

The DUmmies think that healthcare is unfair now, just wait.  It will reach the point that the best doctors and hospitals will be cash only .

There are doctors in Corpus doing that already. One office takes insurance, etc; the other is cash only.

[ChuckJ]

They need to get used to it. I know my doctor isn't accepting any new medicare patients. I've heard others around here are doing the same.

[GOBUCKS]

CaliforniaPeggy (100,220 posts)

Some doctors have even opted out of accepting Medicare patients.

I read this anecdotally all the time, but have never heard the name of a single actual doctor who has refused a Medicare patient.

Not one.

Of course there have always been a tiny handful doctors who don't even take Blue Cross Blue Shield, but that has nothing to do with the current situation.

I feel pretty confident, seeing it now from the CalPig, that we have nothing to fear.

She's not as quite as stupid as Pedro Picasso, but it's a close call, and we can safely discount anything she says.

[Chris_]

They need to get used to it. I know my doctor isn't accepting any new medicare patients. I've heard others around here are doing the same.

I have a feeling a lot of people on employer-subsidized insurance are going to get bad news when January rolls around.  As a single man, I'm not paying so much that my insurance is an inconvenience at this point... we will see what happens next month.  I haven't had any communication about it at all this year.

[SSG Snuggle Bunny]

Calpeggy, you're about past your expiration date, aren't you dear?  You know once the Obama death panels come into full effect your life is worth about as much as some Fluke like slut's unwanted fetus, don't you?
I worry about my kids and my grandson having to coexist in this new ****ed up crap world you idiot Dims have condemned us to by re-electing the worst president ever.

[ChuckJ]

Logan's Run?

[thundley4]

I read this anecdotally all the time, but have never heard the name of a single actual doctor who has refused a Medicare patient.

Not one.

Of course there have always been a tiny handful doctors who don't even take Blue Cross Blue Shield, but that has nothing to do with the current situation.

I feel pretty confident, seeing it now from the CalPig, that we have nothing to fear.

She's not as quite as stupid as Pedro Picasso, but it's a close call, and we can safely discount anything she says.

Even AARP has a kind of disclaimer about "doctors that accept Medicare" in their insurance commercials.  They know it's coming.

[SSG Snuggle Bunny]

Logan's Run?

[Undies]

I read this anecdotally all the time, but have never heard the name of a single actual doctor who has refused a Medicare patient.

Not one.

Of course there have always been a tiny handful doctors who don't even take Blue Cross Blue Shield, but that has nothing to do with the current situation.

I feel pretty confident, seeing it now from the CalPig, that we have nothing to fear.

She's not as quite as stupid as Pedro Picasso, but it's a close call, and we can safely discount anything she says.

My cardiologist has a sign at the check-in window that says she will not be accepting any new Medicare patients.  The sign has been there for over a year.  I'm OK because Medicare is my secondary insurance.  Aetna pays first.

OK?  Heck, I'm GOLD in the medical world right now.   

[sybilll]

I read this anecdotally all the time, but have never heard the name of a single actual doctor who has refused a Medicare patient.

Not one.

Of course there have always been a tiny handful doctors who don't even take Blue Cross Blue Shield, but that has nothing to do with the current situation.

I feel pretty confident, seeing it now from the CalPig, that we have nothing to fear.

She's not as quite as stupid as Pedro Picasso, but it's a close call, and we can safely discount anything she says.

Wow, you must have a "cadillac"/union health insurance plan, or live in a small town where the Dr. has no other choice but to accept Medicare.  In my own family, in a Metro population of 1 million, you can count the providers that no longer accept NEW Medicare patients: My GYN, my mom's PCP, my dad's Dermatologist, my mom's Internist.....and the list goes on. What will happen to my autistic nephew's healthcare is still up in the air.  ObamaCare will alter this country forever, and to not acknowledge that fact is either short-sighted, or ignorant (with all due respect)

[ChuckJ]

In Logan's Run wasn't the age that Obamacare really 'helped' them at 26 or there abouts? Peg is several years past Carousel.

[diesel driver]

an Francisco to Offer Taxpayer-Funded Sexual Mutilation

Allowing government to take over healthcare means that the sort of people who run the government will be making the decisions regarding funding priorities. This is good news for anyone who wants to use sexual mutilation to express an advanced state of psychiatric disease, and wants others to pick up the extravagant tab:

San Francisco is preparing to become the first U.S. city to provide and cover the cost of sex reassignment surgeries for uninsured transgender residents.

UGP?  

I guess he/she/it will be "loading up the truck, and moving to Beverly".

Hills, that is.  

He/she/it wouldn't stand out at all in SanFran. 

The people there would think he/she/it was an insurance sales(man?)   

[Randy]

In Logan's Run wasn't the age that Obamacare really 'helped' them at 26 or there abouts? Peg is several years past Carousel.

Maybe we can convince DUmmies that Soylent Green is made from plankton. 

[Karin]

Aside from Medicare, what about Medicaid?  Obamacare takes millions of people, and shoves them into Medicaid.  That's where the "help" comes from.  You're now eligible!!      Good luck getting anybody taking a first glance at you.  $5 paycheck?  Forget it. 

I sounded these alarm bells to my dim rep way back when and he wrote back saying blah blah blah.  We have a shortage of doctors up here in the first place. 

[zeitgeist]

My cardiologist has a sign at the check-in window that says she will not be accepting any new Medicare patients.  The sign has been there for over a year.  I'm OK because Medicare is my secondary insurance.  Aetna pays first.

OK?  Heck, I'm GOLD in the medical world right now.   

And you will soon be meeting Caddilac Barack's health care surtax.  MMM, mmm, mm.  You rich devil you, soon enouth it will be time to stop your grinin', drop your linen, and stand on line with the rest of the great unwashed.  All aboard for single payer land.  You can see it coming from a mile away once you destroy the public insurance industry. There is no other way to sustain medicare / medicaid.  As with all ponzi schemes you have to continually broaden the base.  Obamacare is just a temproray stop along the way to get you use to the idea of single payer.  Game over.  

[Ballygrl]

http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/11/this_is_your_life_under_obamacare.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

November 15, 2012
This Is Your Life under Obamacare
By James Arlandson

<snippets>

1. Decline in pay for doctors

Medicare pays doctors only a small fraction of the work they put in. So if she does $100.00 worth of work, Medicare sends him $20.00 or $25.00. Is it any wonder that doctors pad the bill? One of my students who works in a doctor's office said in class she's in charge of billing, and it's "totally true" that Medicare pays doctors only a fraction of what they did.

<snipped>

2. Government health care is inferior

What would happen to the NBA if you were to pass a law that pays every player $100K, no matter how good or bad he is? Answer: the best players would go overseas and play for more money. The mediocre players would become the starting five. The back benchers would be rotated in as if they're the sixth or seventh man. Maybe the "top mediocre" players (if there is such a thing) would take money under the table. Why would they play hard when they get the same as the worst players?

The quality of the NBA would decline. The TV contracts would expire and not be renewed. The fan base would shrink to WNBA levels and so would the caliber of play. Remember the NFL replacement refs recently? The NFL went downhill, and the fans booed.

Why the inevitable decline? What's going wrong?

The left misreads -- they always misread -- human nature. The law of human nature and economics says that if you don't pay people well, the best and the brightest won't go into the profession.

Why would future doctors sign up for four years of Medical school hell and come out saddled with huge student loans when Obamacare shall pay them so little, just because some leftist bureaucrats say doctors make too much anyway. "It's not fair!"

<snippped>

3. Yes, Virginia, there really is a death panel

Yes, supposedly to save costs, a panel of bureaucrats will decide, for example, that a 60-year-old cancer patient will not get chemotherapy. It's too costly, and younger patients need it. Elderly, go home and take a pill. If you believe the Independent Payment Advisory Board's cost-cutting measures won't ration medical care, which will involve life and death decisions at the end of the bureaucratic process, you still believe in the tooth fairy. Let's hope the bureaucratic fairy isn't mean and requires you to fill out paperwork just so you can be considered for the operation.

4. Incredibly Shrinking Doctors

The number of doctors will shrink, possibly by eighty-three percent, if doctors carry out their threat. But even if they don't, America will still face a shortage of doctors.

Eighty-three percent of American physicians have considered leaving their practices over President Barack Obama's health care reform law, according to a survey released by the Doctor Patient Medical Association.

Even if doctors do not quit their jobs over the ruling, America will face a shortage of at least 90,000 doctors by 2020. The new health care law increases demand for physicians by expanding insurance coverage. This change will exacerbate the current shortage as more Americans live past 65.

<snipped>

5. Medicare is cut

To help pay for Obamacare cuts from Medicare will happen. ABC News Jake Tapper reports that in 2009 Obama admits that one-third of ObamaCare funding is taken from Medicare.

Eventually, millions will come under one program -- ObamaCare.

6. Taxes go up

There are over twenty ticking tax bombs waiting to explode in the American economy. Here's a partial list:

• A 2.3% excise tax on U.S. sales of medical devices that's already devastating the medical supply industry and its workforce. The levy is a $20 billion blow to an industry that employs roughly 400,000.

• A 3.8% surtax on investment income from capital gains and dividends that applies to single filers earning more than $200,000 and married couples filing jointly earning more than $250,000.

• A $50,000 excise tax on charitable hospitals that fail to meet new "community health assessment needs," "financial assistance" and other rules set by the Health and Human Services Dept.

• A $24 billion tax on the paper industry to control a pollutant known as black liquor.

• A $2.3 billion-a-year tax on drug companies.

• An $87 billion hike in Medicare payroll taxes for employees, as well as the self-employed.

• A hike in the threshold for writing off medical expenses to 10% of adjusted gross income from 7.5%.

• A new cap on flexible spending accounts of $2,500 a year. (Source)

These taxes will hinder growth in certain sectors of the economy and cost jobs.

7. Millions will still be Uninsured

Remember the reason for ObamaCare? Millions were uninsured. How could that be justice, according to utopian leftists? It turns out, however, that millions will still be uninsured.

<snipped>

8. You might not be able to keep your private insurance through work

Some companies will provide health insurance for their employees, but how long will this last if the company experiences profit loss or decline?

<snipped>

9. States can Save Money by Offloading their Employees

Even states can save money in their budgets by offloading their employees into the federal government program called ObamaCare. Gov. Bredesen, a democrat, writes:

My state of Tennessee could reduce costs by over $146 million using the legislated mechanics of health reform to transfer coverage to the federal government. (Source)

So state employees, your gold-plated health insurance will look like the one Joe Factoryworker has. Incidentally, Joe was paying for your health care in your retirement by his taxes. Now we have true equality, which the left values.

10. Penalties for Noncompliance, Courtesy of the IRS

The CBO reports:

People who do not comply with the individual coverage requirement will be charged a penalty, assessed through the Internal Revenue Code, although exemptions from that requirement or its associated penalties are provided for several categories of people-including those with taxable income below the threshold for mandatory tax filing (projected by CBO and JCT to be about $10,000 for a single filer and about $19,000 for a married couple in 2016), unauthorized immigrants, members of certain religious groups, people who would have to pay more than 8 percent of their income for health insurance, and those who obtain a hardship waiver. In 2016, the penalty for noncompliance with the requirement for obtaining insurance is set to be the greater of a flat dollar amount specified in statute ($695 per individual and up to three times that amount for a family) or a percentage of income in excess of the filing threshold (2.5 percent of income).

[ChuckJ]

Aside from Medicare, what about Medicaid?  Obamacare takes millions of people, and shoves them into Medicaid.  That's where the "help" comes from.  You're now eligible!!      Good luck getting anybody taking a first glance at you.  $5 paycheck?  Forget it. 

I sounded these alarm bells to my dim rep way back when and he wrote back saying blah blah blah.  We have a shortage of doctors up here in the first place. 

Speaking of medicaid, that is a prime example of the entitlement mindset of many in this country. I have a friend whose wife works for a dentist that sees medicaid patients. From what he's told me the medicaid patients would have to pay some sort of out of pocket expense that was very small. By small, I mean that something that cost my wife around $125 would cost them around $3. They would bitch about having to pay the $3.