A Medical Mess This Way Cometh
December 1, 2008 / 9:32 am • By Dr. Melissa ClouthierThis post could be obscenely long, there are so many potential problems in the health care field. I’m going to try to make this brief and concise.
There are about to be many more old people than people to care for them. Gen X is about half the size of the Boomers. The Boomers are going to need more care. And it’s expensive. Oh, and Medicare Advantage Medicare costs more than traditional Medicare. Doesn’t everyone want an advantage?
Doctors are leaving hospital care of due to time, stress, and liability. Medicare does not pay more for complicated, time-consuming and probably-going-to-die-anyway patients.
Doctor-hood doesn’t carry the glamor it once did. Smart people are going into other professions.
Doctors feel the pressure to deliver and it’s going to get worse if Obama has his way. (It would with McCain, too.)
This is a short list. The aging population-increased medical costs-decreased pay-fewer doctors complex is not pretty. In addition, the doctors who continue practicing, are seeing their own quality of life diminish.
To continue practicing but have fun doing it, doctors seek out cash-based specialties like dermatology and plastic surgery. Internal medicine just stinks. America will end up being like Great Britain: importing doctors from third world countries. I’m not sure if that’s a bad or good thing.
Cross-posted at RightWingNews and The Houston Chronicle
2 Responses to “A Medical Mess This Way Cometh”
December 1 2008 / 5:16 pm
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I honestly don’t know how doctors do it. It’s looking more and more like doctors and other health professionals are going to become de facto government employees, and that the best and brightest students will take one look and decide that twelve years in school to become a civil servant is not worth the effort.
December 1 2008 / 9:39 pm
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There’s a another factor as well. In order to become a doctor these days, you have to be willing to perform an abortion, or refer a patient to someone who is.
This goes against many people’s consciences,and they seek a career in another profession.