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Politics : A US National Health Care System? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Peter Dierks who wrote (12974)	1/9/2010 11:41:09 AM
From: i-node	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 42652

>> The doctors refusing government terms would have more time to give to patients who care about their well being. Well, docs won't abandon MC to the extent they have time on their hands. What Medicare and Medicaid do for the average physician is to cover the fixed operating cost of the practice, plus at least a portion of the variable cost of his service -- so, a doc is better off taking Medicare than having blank space on his appointment book, but it isn't "profitable". I think what's more likely is that Medicare/Medicaid patients will be handed off, more and more, to Nurse Practitioners, and that is rationally what SHOULD happen if they're going to increase the numbers of these patients but not compensate docs better for them. Docs should be doing work for the patients who have good insurance that can pay well or who, like Limbaugh, will be "paying cash" and allow NPs to handle the MC/MA, etc.