Writerbuckeye wrote: Here's a detail nobody is talking about:

Where are all the physicians going to come from to handle all these new patients?

Especially when a number of doctors are already leaving both Medicare and Medicaid because of the cuts in payments for those services?

Even if those physicians weren't leaving, we already have a fairly significant shortage of primary care doctors -- and here we are MANDATING that basic, primary care be included in any insurance program sold (and you have to buy it, now) -- but there aren't enough primary care docs now to handle everyone.

This is going to create a huge problem of physician shortages in areas that are already underserved, and you are going to see longer and longer waits to see doctors, if you can find one at all.

There are so many things wrong with this bill that will likely take things down the shitter for health care in this country, but a lack of providers is going to be one of the first ones we'll start hearing about.

It will be cute to see how the feds begin forcing doctors to take on patients they don't have the resources to handle.

tk421 wrote: That's obviously not a very important thing for the government. We already have long waits to get a doctors appointment and overcrowded ERs. Adding 30 million more people will only make it worse. I agree, it will probably only be a matter of time before the government mandates that all doctors take medicare/medicaid.

Little Danny wrote: A lot of libs argue that ER's will be clear now since the formerly uninsured will have primary care physicians. In my personal and professional experience, I would argue that people use the ER as their primary care physicians often because they are too lazy to make an appointment or too impatient to wait and see a doctor the next day or two for that cough that's lasted for two days. The fact these people did not have health insurance likely prevented them from hitting up the ER more in the first place. They were scared they would be stuck with the bill. With the passage of this legislation, the ER's will be flooded.