It looks like the fact that rationing will be the result of the implementation of Placebocare is getting more attention and more supportive statistics:
Doc Shortage to Worsen After Healthcare Reform
From the article:
By 2015 — one year after the majority of the provisions in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) will have taken effect — the nation will be short 63,000 physicians, a figure that includes both primary care doctors and specialists. Previous estimates put the shortage at 39,600.
Note that the study now shows a shortage of 63K physicians which is nearly double a previous study. The study goes on to state the obvious implication:
“Unless Congress supports at least a 15% increase in residency training slots (adding another 4,000 physicians a year to the pipeline), access to health care will be out of reach for many Americans,” the group said in its press release.
The problem will be most pronounced for people living in rural and underserved areas where finding a doctor can already be a difficult task, according to the report.
What will happen in areas where there aren’t enough physicians? Why of course, people won’t get their health care. But wait, Placebocare was supposed to provide the utopia of health care for all. Nope, just one more example of the fallacy of the “government can provide everything without implications crowd.”
What’s the most concerning part of this problem? That would be that this study is still understating the problem by about half. If you look at the numbers I showed you here, we will need approximately 144,000 additional physicians on the day Placebocare is enacted in order to maintain the same physician/patient ratio as today. The problem with even that number is that it doesn’t take into account physicians who choose not to continue in their profession or the increase visits driven by the fact that Placebocare, and health care in general, will now become free for a significantly larger portion of the US population.
Whether through death panels or the inability to access physician care due to a swamping demand of the system, Placebocare will create rationing of health care. Unless, of course, The One is able to point his magic wand and say “Poof, you’re a physician!”
