Glenn Reynolds links to this Wall Street Journal piece by a New York physician who, along with many of his peers, no longer treats Medicare and Medicaid patients and, increasingly, even those with private insurance. The meager and delayed compensation isn't worth the myriad and time-consuming forms that have to be filled out. The doctor cautions: "With more and more doctors dropping out of one insurance plan or another, especially government plans, there is no guarantee that you will be able to see a physician no matter what coverage you have."
No doubt our president and the Speaker of the House, in to their drive to socialize medicine in this country, have already considered this fly in the ointment and have a solution at the ready. It doesn't seem unreasonable to expect from them a bill that, while invoking the "universal right" to health care and framing it as a civil rights issue, makes it an offense for a doctor to turn away any patient for any reason, with penalties including license revocation and fines. With doctors thus relegated to the status of taxi drivers, it will be fun to see the effect on medical school enrollments.
There are relatively uncomplicated solutions to the ungainly health care system in this country that might even work but because they are not compulsory and involve free markets, the left will never consider them.
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