<p>@UCLAri,</p>
<p>sorry to double post. Can’t edit on phone. </p>
<p>Look at the 2010 Medicare schedule. Almost all specialties will see their pay decreased if one account for medical inflation. While primary care physician gets a nominal boost to payment, medical inflation and increased cost of administration will result in a fall of real income.</p>
<p>Colleges00701,</p>
<p>I expect salaries to remain roughly similar to present, with a slight shift to the left for the most highly paid specialists. Nobody will be in the cold, shivering, unable to afford his or her loans.</p>
<p>It seems to me that disagreeing with the principle of reforming an already highly regulated system to be more or less similarly regulated is kind of a case of weeping over spilled milk.</p>
<p>JasonInNy,</p>
<p>The expected real drop in income you’re arguing about is not a result of the reforms lowering pay, however. That’s a result of other factors. And really, increased cost of administration seems much more nominal that I’m hearing some claim.</p>
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<p>^^^ Not really what I was trying to say, because ObamaCare is trying to cut costs of a third party payer system, which is IMPOSSIBLE (I have an economic proof somewhere around here). I don’t think the gov, should be taking on that cost. That cost should be distrubuted to the consumer.</p>
<p>Oh well there is no point in debating anymore, because health care reform will probably pass tomm. (dems are pretty confident it will pass), and we will see what happens</p>
<p>Colleges00701,</p>
<p>The government already takes on a considerable portion of the cost. </p>
<p>Quite frankly, the biggest weight on the health care system is also the one that nobody will touch (end of life care.) Dr. Grumpy has an interesting, if somewhat controversial post:</p>
<p>[Doctor</a> Grumpy in the House: Checkout time](<a href=“http://drgrumpyinthehouse.blogspot.com/2010/03/checkout-time.html]Doctor”>Doctor Grumpy in the House: Checkout time)</p>
<p>We’re already paying for other people’s care through premiums. The question is whether you want to have government bureaucrats or corporate bureaucrats making those decisions. All this talk about “death panels” and such silliness rings hollow in my ear because WE ALREADY HAVE PEOPLE MAKING THESE DECISIONS.</p>
<p>UCLAri: Most of this is moot as I am sure the health care bill will pass tomorrow, but the media has been giving increased attention to doctors that have left the profession and shut down their practices because of lower medicare reimbursement rates, etc. There is actually quite a high percentage of physicians leaving the medical field - the NYT recently ran an article about how a family doctor could barely keep his practice afloat.</p>
<p>Yeah. Yeah. It sucks. We get it. But what’s a better field right now? We can’t quite absorb 30,000 new ibankers. lol</p>
<p>All this chicken little stuff gets a little old , at least to me.</p>
<p>-Lurker-,</p>
<p>The NYT says a lot of things. I want to see hard numbers that show that doctors are leaving in greater numbers than before. </p>
<p>I have seen no disturbing trend as of yet. I doubt that there is one.</p>
<p>I believe the original poster was talking about this article: </p>
<p>[Half</a> of primary-care doctors in survey would leave medicine - CNN.com](<a href=“http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/11/17/primary.care.doctors.study/]Half”>Half of primary-care doctors in survey would leave medicine - CNN.com)</p>
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<p>I predict a shortage of doctors, a lot worse than the one now, a couple of years after the bill takes effect. Get ready for long waiting times to see doctors (it already happens in other socialized countries, ie Canada, UK, why do you think so many of them are forced to come to the U.S. to get treated.)----To see specialists that is.</p>
<p>-Lurker-,</p>
<p>That article seems to have little to do with the planned reforms, and if anything, is just as (more?) damning of the private insurance industry than anything. </p>
<p>“Dr. Alan Pocinki has been practicing medicine for 17 years. He began his career around the same time insurance companies were turning to the PPO and HMO models. So he was a little shocked when he began spending more time on paperwork than patients and found he was running a small business, instead of a practice. He says it’s frustrating.”</p>
<p>Bureaucracy? In my private sector? It’s more common than you think!</p>
<p>UCLAri, where is your logic coming from? </p>
<p>You claimed that increased admin costs are nominal yet now you claim that it is “more common than [we]” think. </p>
<p>On ABC news, the current cost of paperwork due to Medicare costs the average physician $60000 plus a year. As paperwork goes up, the doctor is filing insurance claims instead of making money, falling to the predation of high oppertunity cost.</p>
<p>jasonInNy,</p>
<p>I said that the INCREASE in the cost to admin costs due to the reforms is likely to be nominal.</p>
<p>Admin costs are already clearly very high, and much of that is thanks to the much ballyhooed private sector and insurance companies. One of the big arguments people here seem to be making against the reforms is “oh noes the government bureaucracy!” I find that funny because big massive corporations are giant steamrollers of bureaucracy already. Nothing new there.</p>
<p>If the Healthcare bill doesn’t pass, the burden of retired baby boomers will weigh the hospitals and healthcare workers down in the near future. There will be 57 million uncovered Americans by 2019. </p>
<p>check out this article by Ron Brownstein</p>
<p>[National</a> Journal Magazine - The Price Of Inaction On Health Care](<a href=“http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazine/nj_20100313_8731.php]National”>http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazine/nj_20100313_8731.php)</p>
<p>I think the healthcare bill was sort of modeled after the dutch one, if i am not mistaken. Here in the netherlands, the “status” remains. Salaries are not as insanely high as in the US, but it is a very steady and pretty high salary. You won’t be extremely rich, but you sure as hell will be wealthy. Medicine is still a very popular study in the Netherlands, because being a doctor has the same status as it has (at least as I think it has) in America. Healthcare should be something for everyone.</p>
<p>Medicine will always be the most secure job. If you want to be laid off and looking for a job your whole life (adventurous type), please, marry someone in medicine and pursue something else.</p>