112th Congress: Everybody's Angry At Everybody

AngelHedgie

Detharin wrote: »

Kayne Red Robe wrote: »

I don't accept your premise that there is a shortage of medical care available that increasing the number of insured folk is going to exacerbate.People are going to the ER now, without insurance. Are you trying to tell me that they are going to go to the ER more if we give them insurance, and not take advantage of said insurance to get (cheaper, less work intensive for the doctors) preventative care instead?

We are not rationing emergency medical care, it is illegal to do so.

1. Reality sucks, but we are already running a shortage of doctors. Especially Primary Care ones who can make more money by becoming a specialist.

http://money.cnn.com/2011/04/06/news/doctor_shortage_healthcare.fortune/index.htm

2. Hmm I wonder what happened in Massachussets with their health insurance. Oh that is right, giving people insurance increased the usage rates of the ER. Yes I am telling you if you give people insurance they will to the ER which is open between the hours of 5pm and 9am as opposed to visiting their primary care physician who only has specific office hours and would require an appointment.

http://www.boston.com/news/health/articles/2010/07/04/emergency_room_visits_grow_in_mass/?rss_id=Boston.com+--+Health+news

3. When you show up to the ER and have to wait that is rationing. When the doctor only has 2 minutes to spend with you before he has to move on that is rationing. When your tests are inconclusive and you are sent home and told to come back if things get worse, yep that is rationing.

1. We are running a shortage of doctors thanks to AMA policies that are meant to artificially inflate doctor salaries. In the long term, we need to force med schools to actually produce enough doctors to meet the needs of the US. In the short term, we need to stop the AMA from opposing the use of other medical professionals such as nurse practitioners and physician assistants for initial font line care.

2. The main reason we see ER overuse is because there exists a gap in coverage.between medical practices and the ER. Thankfully, we are finally filling that gap with urgent care facilities.

3. Determining service via ability to pay is also rationing. Funny how you never mention that.

JihadJesus

Dac wrote: »

As for 'Doctors poofing into existence,' we have these things called 'schools.'

Unfortunately we also have this thing called the AMA; if there are only so many slots in internship programs and residencies, there are only going to be so many doctors and apparently care rationing isn't an issue when professional organizations do it.

What we should REALLY be doing is dramatically upping the number of nurse practicioners and PAs who are more than capable of giving 90% of the care anyway. Want to take a wild guess who's fighting that tooth and nail?

P10

spool32 wrote: »

a duck! attacks 3 + 2 = 6

This explains a lot, really.

ElJeffe

So.

I haven't seen this thread discussing actual congressional stuff for more than a few posts at a time in the last <insert large number> pages. Rather, this seems to be turning into a giant thread whereby we discuss any issue that could possibly have something to do with legislation and also maybe unicorns from time to time.

This thread is taking some time off. If anyone wishes to discuss specific topics surrounding congress or legislation, make a specific thread for that purpose.