So, how about: “If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor?” Well, not if he or she isn’t practicing anymore. After scoffing at conservative warnings for years that socialized medicine-light would create doctor shortages, Obamacare cheerleaders can no longer whitewash the grim reality. The Physicians Foundation found that 81 percent of doctors believe they are “either overextended or at full capacity.” Another 44 percent said they “planned to cut back on the number of patients they see, retire, work part-time or close their practice to new patients.”
Analysts on all sides of the debate agree that massive cuts in Medicaid payments to primary care doctors, which take effect on Jan. 1, will reduce patient access. Meanwhile, a Commonwealth Fund survey found that 26 percent of American adults waited six days or more to see a doctor — with only Canada and Norway performing worse. A separate physicians’ staffing company’s poll, reported by the left-wing New York Times, found that patients “waited an average of 29 days nationally to see a dermatologist [,] 66 days to have a physical in Boston and 32 days for a heart evaluation by a cardiologist in Washington.”
Translation: If you like your doctor, it doesn’t mean you’ll get to see your doctor. Tick, tick, tick.
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