Quote:
Originally Posted by Schneed10
Quality of care will decrease because:
1) Wait times for appointments will get much longer, wait times for procedures (like knee replacement) will get much much longer. The supply of physicians and facilities is not increasing, but demand for these services will. That inevitably results in a logjam.
2) Reimbursement to hospitals and physicians from commercial insurers (people who currently have insurance) will get phased downward over time to a more homogenous rate. Right now, physicians practice where the money is, in other words they locate their offices where most patients have good insurance. With so many previously uninsured patients gaining coverage, and with reimbursement homogenizing across payers, doctors will migrate to areas where most people are located. If you make a decent living and your neighborhood reflects that, then some of your physicians will be leaving the area. This will happen over time, not suddenly.
3) Over time, changes to the reimbursement structure will incent hospitals to treat minor issues as opposed to major, equipment-intensive illnesses. They will not have the same incentive to invest in state of the art technology. You'll have fewer choices when it comes to destinations to receive the state of the art care for the most serious of problems.
And many others.
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Now we're getting somewhere. I get it, I really do get that the more people that use the system the more strain put on the system. But is the only solution to the problem not to bring more people into the system? There are many things we can do yet people here don't seem to want to bother.
I'd also point out that health service in general has been declining for years and that problem is only going to get worse unless he root cause of the problem, health service infrastructure at large, is address.