I believe the same person wrote this article. And I want to tell you, the comments from the survey are spot-on. Over the course of 20 years, our business (which serves physicians) has only occasionally seen docs retire. One, maybe two, in a year. So far this year (as of today) we've seen six. And counting. Combined with the new health care law is an unwieldy Medicare reimbursement system that has slowed payments, cut payments, and generally become more difficult to work with. They're downright sick of it. More alarming, some of these docs are retiring at ages much younger than you would expect. One gastroenterologist I've worked with for 15 years is retiring in his 50s. Of the six, only one was of what would traditionally be considered "retirement age".
The problem is serious.
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What will ObamaCare do to the supply of doctors? For the answer, we turn to a Heritage Foundation report on a new survey of the medical profession, which confirms the results of a previous survey from 2010. Doctors hate ObamaCare even more than the general public does, with 60 percent of respondents saying it will “have a negative impact on overall patient care,” but that’s not the worst of it:
The Doctors Company, which is the largest insurer of physician and surgeon medical liability in the nation, received more than 5,000 surveys, including all specialties and every region in the country. The results weren’t good for the President’s signature piece of legislation.
Not only do doctors believe that Obamacare will not improve the health care system, they also anticipate that it will worsen the current condition. According to the survey, nine out of 10 physicians are unwilling to recommend health care as a profession to a family member, and one primary care physician even commented, “I would not recommend becoming an M.D. to anyone.”
Obamacare doesn’t just discourage entrance into the medical profession; it encourages those who are already practicing to leave it. The survey states that “health care reform is motivating doctors to change their retirement timeline.” In fact, 43 percent of respondents said they are considering retiring within the next five years as a result of the law. A surgeon from Michigan wrote that under Obamacare, “We will be moving further away from humanity-based health care and more towards the patient as a commodity. This was not the way my father practiced—nor will I. Winding down to retire early.”
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