According to a new report from the Association of American Medical Colleges, Obama’s health care reform bill, now that it has passed, will create a massive shortage of primary care doctors over the next 15 years.
A shortage of primary-care and other physicians could mean more-limited access to health care and longer wait times for patients.
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Doctors’ groups and medical schools had hoped that the new health-care law, passed in March, would increase the number of funded residency slots, but such a provision didn’t make it into the final bill.
“It will probably take 10 years to even make a dent into the number of doctors that we need out there,” said Atul Grover, the AAMC’s chief advocacy officer.
And this report really only worries about the demand side increasing, when recent studies have already indicated that some practicing doctors may leave or limit their practices because of the reform.
I opposed Obamacare on the basis that the federal government has no authority to enact it, but also because I knew, as did most other libertarian minded people, that the government cannot allocate resources as efficiently as the free market. This reform will mean a debt we cannot control and rationing of care that will hurt the quality of medical care for everyone. Repeal it!
Dr Jerry Green
September 13, 2010
There is a no cost solution. License the thousands of international medical doctors already residing in North America who are driving taxis instead of practicing medicine.
Krish
September 14, 2010
Already there is a big shortage of doctors. My mum lives in Canada and She is waiting for 4 months to get a Fine Needle Aspiration of thyroid. She is having a lump in thyroid and we all are stressed not knowing what it is. After 4 months of long waiting it was done and then they are saying “Sample not satisfactory” . I believe we should give opportunities to international graduates who have lot of experience. Unlike Canadian doctors they have studied with patients and their hands are much more used to humans.