Where Will All The Doctors Go?

The way the Democrats want to fix health care is to give free health care for 30 million people while taking it away from the rest of us that pay for it. Good luck seeing a doctor when you need it. If your kid has an asthma attack they might die before they can see a doctor under the Democrats Obamacare. But they don't care about the people that had insurance but now they can't find a doctor. This is the cold hard truth about what the doctors will do if Obamacare passes.

A new survey published by The New England Journal of Medicine, a prestigious magazine, says that nearly half of primary care doctors in America could leave the medical profession if Obamacare is passed.

According to the Journal, 63 percent of physicians feel that health care reform is needed but should be done in a more gradual way. And an astounding 72 percent of doctors believe a public option, that is a government-run health insurance company, would have a negative impact on medical care in the USA.

From the jump, "Talking Points" has been telling you about the unintended consequences of Obamacare. But if half the nation's doctors are considering getting out, that's by far the most frightening offshoot of health care reform.

If Obamacare passes, there could be about 30 million more Americans seeking medical care from the establishment. Dick Morris says even if every doctor stays in place, the result would be health care rationing. But if doctors begin leaving the profession, well, you do the math.

The question is: Why? Why are so many doctors queasy about Obamacare? There are essentially two reasons.

First, loss of control. Most doctors value their freedom to make decisions when it comes to their patients. They don't want some pinhead in Washington telling them how to treat a person.

Second, many doctors believe Obamacare will cut payments, especially in the Medicare area. With the high cost of medical malpractice insurance and other expenses, many doctors say hey, it's just not worth it.

If the Democratic Party is concerned about an exodus of American doctors from the field, we haven't heard it. We haven't heard President Obama, Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid say anything about this.

But I believe the study in The New England Journal of Medicine because I've talked to enough doctors myself to know there's no great enthusiasm for Obamacare in the medical community, even here in liberal New York City.

The massive Obamacare plan is already out of control and it hasn't even been passed yet.

And that's "The Memo."

Physician Survey: Health Reforms Potential Impact on Physician Supply and Quality of Medical Care
Mar. – Apr. 2010
Key Findings

Physician Support of Health Reform in General
• 62.7% of physicians feel that health reform is needed but should be implemented in a more targeted, gradual way, as opposed to the sweeping overhaul that is in legislation.
• 28.7% of physicians are in favor of a public option.
• 3.6% of physicians prefer the “status quo” and feel that the U.S. health care system is best “as is.

Health Reform and Primary Care Physicians
• 46.3% of primary care physicians (family medicine and internal medicine) feel that the passing of health reform will either force them out of medicine or make them want to leave medicine.

Health Reform, Public Option, and Practice Revenue/Physician Income
• 41% of physicians feel that income and practice revenue will “decline or worsen dramatically” with a public option.
• 30% feel income will “decline or worsen somewhat” with a public option.
• 9% feel income will “improve somewhat” with a public option, and 0.8% feel income will “improve dramatically” with a public option.

Health Reform, Public Option, and Physician Supply
• 72% of physicians feel that a public option would have a negative impact on physician supply, with 45% feeling it will “decline or worsen dramatically” and 27% predicting it will “decline or worsen somewhat.
• 24% of physicians think they will try to retire early if a public option is implemented.
• 21% of physicians would try to leave medicine if a public option is implemented, even if not near retirement age at the time.

Health Reform and Recommending Medicine to Others as a Career
• 36% of physicians would not recommend medicine as a career, regardless of health reform.
• 27% would recommend medicine as a career but not if health reform passes.
• 25% of physicians would recommend medicine as a career regardless of health reform.
• 12% would not recommend medicine as a career now but feel that they would recommend it as a career if health reform passes

Source:“Physician Survey: Health Reform’s Impact on Physician Supply and Quality of Medical Care,”
The Medicus Firm, www.TheMedicusFirm.com

RUSH: Folks, you know, I very seldom -- as you well know for 21 years -- encourage phone calls and e-mails and letters to members of Congress.  The reason that I don't do it is that I never want the charge to be leveled that whatever response you gave was not genuine, that you had been talked into it or motivated and inspired or manipulated into doing it.  I think it is pedal-to-the-metal time, and even if you have been e-mailing and faxing and calling, I think it's time to intensify it.  You call the local offices. You call the Washington office of these people, the Democrats and so forth.  The Republicans are like Martians: They can't stop this.  The Martians couldn't stop it, the Republicans can't stop it. Not with votes. They don't have the votes to stop it, but you can.  The only reason we are where we are now is because of you, the American people.  That's the truth of the matter.  I normally don't do this, but time to throw down the gauntlet here and really ratchet it up, to go along with all the other pressure that is being brought to bear elsewhere throughout the rest of the media…. 

… The lines are busy. Some people are getting through and some people aren't, but what you can also do is Google "Code Red." Just put in "Code Red." Just search for it. You'll find a website link.  

The Hill reports the results of Rush’s call to arms was: 

"House phone lines were nearing capacity on Tuesday as conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh encouraged fans to call in their objections on healthcare legislation. 

The House e-mail system was also deluged in what the House’s technology office called “a very significant spike” in traffic. 

The office of the Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) sent out a system-wide advisory to member offices at 2 p.m. Tuesday, warning them of the dramatic increase in traffic..."

“Our phone system is nearing capacity,” said Jeff Ventura, spokesman for the CAO. “It got critical enough whereby we notified all systems’ administrators throughout the House that the phone systems are overloading.”                                                                                      We conservatives of both parties have been coming together to stop this health care bill from harming our country. Call,email or protest at their local offices. Yesterday we shut down the phone lines at Capitol Hill. Get their direct numbers and call them. Tell your friends to call them. The walls of Jerico came down with noise so lets see what we can dow when we really want something or don't want it. These Progressives in Washington are taking over every private sector they can and then say they aren't socialist. Have they once found a problem that a govenment take over wont fix? We see what they have done to SSI and Medicare and all the other government ponzi scams they have started and are now out of control.

Slaughter House Rule

Lefties (Daily Kos, TPMDC, and Huffington Post) are defending against allegations that the “Slaughter Rule” proposed strategy to pass ObamaCare without a vote is unprecedented and unconstitutional.  The Slaughter Rule has the support of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and is the Democrats preferred strategy to pass ObamaCare.  Liberals are peddling a talking point that self-executing rules like the Slaughter Rule have been done before and it was the Republicans that used this tool in the past.
The fact of the matter is that there is no precedent for the House to pass a bill without a direct vote by using a budget reconciliation measure as a trigger and a means to pass ObamaCare.  Nancy Pelosi’s potentially unconstitutional strategy to pass unconstitutional ObamaCare is without precedent nor justification.
The Wall Street Journal has a piece today that critiques the Pelosi strategy, the “Slaughter Rule,” that is being considered to pass ObamaCare.

We’re not sure American schools teach civics any more, but once upon a time they taught that under the U.S. Constitution a bill had to pass both the House and Senate to become law. Until this week, that is, when Speaker Nancy Pelosi is moving to merely “deem” that the House has passed the Senate health-care bill and then send it to President Obama to sign anyway.   Under the “reconciliation” process that began yesterday afternoon, the House is supposed to approve the Senate’s Christmas Eve bill and then use “sidecar” amendments to fix the things it doesn’t like. Those amendments would then go to the Senate under rules that would let Democrats pass them while avoiding the ordinary 60-vote threshold for passing major legislation. This alone is an abuse of traditional Senate process.

I eagerly wait the left pointing to a precedent where a bill is deemed to have passed without a direct vote that effects 1/6th of the U.S. economy.  I also await a precedent where the House used a vote on a budget reconciliation measure to deem as passed another piece of legislation.  This process is so complicated that the President has to sign the ObamaCare bill before he signs the reconciliation measure into law, for this trick to work.
Speaker Pelosi admitted that she does not want to allow a direct vote on the House passed measure when she stated yesterday that “nobody wants to vote for the Senate bill.”  Ryan Grimm of the Huffington Post writes:

The Speaker, in a press briefing with progressive media in her Capitol office, said that three options were under consideration. One of them involved a vote on the Senate health care bill, followed by a vote on a reconciliation package. “Nobody wants to vote for the Senate bill,” she said. She wouldn’t rule out that option, she said, because there is no official bill language yet, which she said she needs first before she makes a decision on process.

This shows an intent on the part of Pelosi to skirt the Article 1, Section 7 of the Constitution that “Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it becomes a Law, be presented to the President of the United States.” If the House does not have a direct vote on the legislation, this seems to be a violation of the explicit language of the Constitution.  Pelosi favors the Slaughter Rule that would allow a complicated procedure to be used so that the House does not have to schedule a direct vote on the Senate passed version of ObamaCare at any stage in the process.  More from Huffington Post and Pelosi:

So the third option is to write the rule so that the passage of the reconciliation package deems the Senate bill to also have passed, a parliamentary maneuver she said the Senate parliamentarian had said was acceptable.  It’s a technical distinction and Democrats hope that it’s deep enough in the weeds that average voters will focus instead on the substance of the legislation instead of the confusing process. Asked if she had firmly decided to pursue the third option, she answered, “I like the third one better.”

Now we know that the House is seriously considering a procedure of questionable constitutionality to pass a bill of questionable constitutionality.  Once this trigger is pulled, the Senate will consider a reconciliation measure that is functionally an amendment to the Senate passed ObamaCare bill.  This violates the House and Senate tradition that reconciliation amend existing law as a deficit cutting tool.  After that, the President has to sign the Senate passed, and House deemed to have been passed, version of ObamaCare.  After that he has to have another signing ceremony for the reconciliation measure for the plan to work.
This is a very complicated procedure being used to pull a fast one on the American people.