What is the difference between Obamacare and socialized medicine?
The Affordable Care Act (relative to health insurance) states that you must have it. WHEN you buy it, you're still getting it from all the same companies (for the most part) that have always offered it. The coverage is just mandate to look a certain way, but to the consumer they'll look mostly the same as they always have. IF you make under a certain income, then you'll receive subsidies to help pay for your care. If you qualify for Medicaid (welfare), which has been for nearly 50 years, then you'll be able to sign up for that as well. Socialized medicine is where you and the company you work for pay a significant amount into taxes and the government acts as the insurance company...like they do for Medicare.
Under single payer, do doctors and nurses get paid less money?
you need to sharpen your thinking. "single payer" refers to where the money comes from, not to how the ownership of the medical care delivery facility is organized. Britain has government ownership of the care delivery as well as single payer [as does Canada]. France only has single payer, but care delivery facilities are privately owned. The temptation with single payer is to force the amounts paid DOWN despite the underlying economics. Medicaid does that now [so does Obamacare] -- with the result that in some areas there are few or no medical care providers willing to take that business. Single payer avoids this by requiring every provider to take their rate and money. That doesn't change the underlying economics one whit unless the government throws in something such as free malpractice insurance [France comes close to this]. Britain has a shortage of physicians and regularly imports them from many other countries. This is the free market in action -- not enough Brits want to go to medical school, pay the high costs for that, and endure the ten years training required. That's because their NHS pays too little and imposes too many silly rules and regulations. France has no such shortage. Medical school is heavily subsidized [but students must be French citizens]. Malpractice insurance is very cheap. Physicians are self-employed at good prices and make a good living [probably better than similar US physicians because the French physician isn't paying off half a million in debt]. Aetna has a point -- after fixing the comparative numbers to account for Medicare/Medicaid's separately paid management costs and buried losses to medical fraud, the portion of costs associated with the insurance activity is quite low ... a few percent at most [and certainly TOTALS less than the estimated ten percent Medicare loses to fraud alone]. On the other hand, physicians would benefit from a single unified billing system -- it would lower their administrative costs. There is nothing to say that such a unified billing system couldn't be built anyway -- you'd simply have to pass a law requiring all insurance companies to use it.
Obamacare vs employer health insurance?
I was going to sign up for my employers health insurance next month. I work at a library and they have Anthem. I took it out once before and it was very expensive. Since my job is part-time and I had trouble finding a physician who would even accept it, I dropped it and went back to the VA since I'm a veteran. I now have nerve damage from a dental visit which the VA cannot treat and the pain clinic they out-sourced me to first cauterized the nerve and when that failed I had cyber-knife treatment (3 hours of radiation) still with no success. Now people are telling me to hold out until October when Obamacare kicks in to save money as the cost of the Anthem insurance is due to quadruple!? This is so confusing and I really need to find a doctor who can prescribe ongoing pain medication. (The VA has discontinued Oxycontin and replaced it with morphine which does nothing for severe nerve damage.) Thanks for all your answers from an Iraq/Afghanistan veteran.
With ObamaCare, Will It Help Or Hurt Doctors?
According to the American Association of Medical Colleges, we face a shortfall of more than 150,000 doctors over the next 15 years. This shortfall, combined with skyrocketing demand due to demographics, third party payment, and other issues is why medical prices are skyrocketing. ObamaCare did not even attempt to solve these core issues and instead focussed on the SYMPTOM of coverage. Estimates suggest that on average physicians are reimbursed at roughly 78% of costs under Medicare, and just 70% of costs under Medicaid. ObamaCare is going to increase the number of people on Medicare. That is how they got rid of the public option, they just assume Medicare will pick up the tab and eventually people will advocate for something better than medicare since Medicare is a lousy program. Roughly 40% of doctors are age 55 or over. Are they really going to want to stick it out for a few more years if all they have to look forward to is more red tape (both government and insurance company) for less money? Remember, the average medical school graduate begins their career with more than $295,000 in debt. A 2010 IBD/TPP Poll found that 45% of doctors would at least consider leaving their practices or taking early retirement as a result of the new health care law. And, an online survey by Sermo.com, a sort of Facebook for physicians, found that 26% of physicians in solo practices were considering closing In fact, we have already seen the start of this process in Massachusetts, where Mitt Romney's health care reforms were nearly identical to President Obama's. Romney's reforms increased the demand for health care but did nothing to expand the supply of physicians. In fact, by cracking down on insurance premiums, Massachusetts pushed insurers to reduce their payments to providers, making it less worthwhile for doctors to expand their practices. As a result, the average wait to get an appointment with a doctor grew from 33 days to over 55 days.