Virginia Democrat Calls For Forcing Doctors To Accept Medicare And Medicaid Patients

You would think that when your party is burying a hole that is getting harder and harder to get out of, you wouldn't want to that hole get deeper faster.  But here is Kathleen Murphy, Democrat running for the House of Delegates against Barbara Comstock, telling a forum in Great Falls that she believes it should law to force doctors to accept Medicare and Medicaid patients.  Forced by government decree, mind you.  A birdie sent me this:

FYI last night at the Great Falls Grange debate, Democrat delegate candidate Kathleen Murphy said that since many doctors are not accepting medicaid and medicare patients, she advocates making it a legal requirement for those people to be accepted.  

She did not recognize that the payments are inadequate to cover the doctors' costs.  She also did not recognize there is a shortage of over 45,000 physicians now and that it is forecast to be 90,000 in a few years.  

Democrats appear to want to make physicians slaves of the state, but Democrats don't admit they would just drive more doctors out of practice into retirement and other occupations.  The Obamacare law and regulations are causing millions of people to lose their health insurance, drop many doctors and hospitals. The HHS internal forecast is 93 million Americans would lose their health insurance due to the Obamacare law and rules about adequacy of insurance.

Many more people will be uninsured.   The penalties for being uninsured start at $95 per year, but the penalties can't be collected by the IRS if a person does not have a tax refund to attach.  

The out of pocket costs required by Obamacare's Silver Plan for a non-smoking mother and father with two children making a gross before income taxes of $50,000 (roughly average salary for VA) would be $13,765 per year including the deductible of $10,400.  That's 28% of their gross income -- not very affordable and about the same as guidelines for a mortgage payment.  For such a family making $100,000 of gross income, The cost would be $21,431 including the deductible of $12,700, or 21% of gross income.   

With such high deductibles doctors are stuck with trying to collect cash from the patients, even at regulated charge structures.  Thus is makes sense for primary care doctors not to participate in Obamacare, medicare and medicaid.  They should encourage patients to participate in Concierge Care and insurance programs run by the doctors themselves with patients who can do simple math.  Patients can take out catastrophic insurance with high deductibles for major surgeries.  Tax deductability for individual medical savings accounts would make health care more affordable.  

The head of Obamacare programs, Berwick, loves the socialized medical system in the UK, but never mentions that malpractice insurance is minimal.  In the UK, panels of doctors review and approve malpractice awards, rather than emotional juries misled by trial lawyers.  Malpractice reform like this with caps on malpractice awards would go a long way in making health care affordable.

I hope physicians rise up and speak out for common sense, protecting quality medical care in the US and giving patients freedom to choose

 

THIS along with the fact that Terry McAuliffe has already said he'd go to the government shutdown mat to get a state exchange in Virginia.  Unbelievable.  Combine the chaos of thousands of people across Virginia losing their health insurance, we are going to add to that on the state level by forcing doctors to accept patients they can't afford to help?  Unbelievable.  Dark days are ahead, but there is still time.    Three days to make sure this does not happen.  

Democrats in Virginia will drive up health care costs, drive doctors out of the state, and then drive health care costs up even more because there will not be enough doctors practicing in the state.  

Vote Cuccinelli.

Comments

[Iceman]

Then pass a law requiring all politicians to take enemas daily to eliminate some of the shit they have for brains. This is the guy the voters in Virgina wanted ? They are brain dead

[pulaski]

This is pure Socialized medicine, with no jobs. More people are getting thrown off their insurance policies everyday, teachers are included and McAuliffe can't do anything about it.

[viola wilson]

No! Do not force Doctor's to accept this. Repeal this illegal tax! No one in this country should accept this! It is one more piece of legislation to force Socialism down our throats! These are corrupt men trying to undermine Constitution and make criminals of innocent men. Shades of KGB! No wonder, the Imperialists were given our gold, The White House taking tips from the Kremlin, and Middle East getting ammo to blow us down. This is Treason and those that are for this should be impeached!

[John JonesSr]

The real tragedy here lies both in the sentiment and the false notions spewed-out in reference to freedom; the same folks, to a political and religious certainty, persist in the practice of sharing such care to those in far-away places --areas where natural disasters have occurred, Africa, South America, India, and elsewhere, even to former combatants-- yet at home, well, that's another failed story of woe. I read somewhere, "Charity begins at home then spreads itself abroad."

[Steven]

And how do the propose enforcing such a law? Revoking their license to practice medicine or putting them behind bars won't treat any patients. Fines will only cause MORE doctors to exit the field. In short, it is literally a PHYSICAL impossibility to force doctors to accept patients.

[James Anthony]

A few years ago some men said something about "...our fortunes, our lives, our sacred honor."

[John Smith]

Despite all the historical and current evidence that statism leads to misery and death, why does statism increase? To quote Craig Biddle:

To say to a religious [or secular altruist] person, “You can be for liberty and still embrace your religion so long as you respect people’s rights” is to say, “You can be for liberty and still embrace your religion so long as you ignore or deny the central tenets of your religion.” Who is going to do that in any consistent or sustained way? And if a religious person were consistently to ignore the central tenets of his religion, how would he feel about himself? And what might he expect “God” to do about such disobedience?

If people accept fundamental moral or philosophic ideas that are in conflict with rights, then even if they say they are “for liberty,” they will not be able to support liberty in a consistent or lasting way. When it comes time to vote for a politician, or write to a representative, or advocate the abolition of Medicare or Medicaid or Social Security or food stamp programs or government-run schools, people’s fundamental philosophic convictions will substantially, if not entirely, trump their conflicting political claims.

http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/issues/2013-winter/libertarianism-vs-radical-capitalism.asp