subject: With Health Care Reform, Will Doctors Start To Turn Patients Away? [print this page] The initial concept was that the nationalized health care plan being suggested by President Obama would reduce the amount of trips made to hospital emergency rooms every day given that those who seek out emergency room care for routine medical issues would now have the medical insurance coverage that they will need to schedule regular physician visits. Taking a look at the bigger picture on the other hand, shows a frightening thought and the new health care plan could in fact cause an increase in the amount of non-emergency, emergency room visits everyday.
A look at the current health care structure actually reveals that those individuals without medical insurance, within the US, in fact use the emergency room less frequently than individuals who are currently on Medicare and Medicaid, and the leading basis is that Medicare and Medicaid pay very little to providers for the care that the dispense to these patients and because of this physicians are more apt to turn them away at the office. This leaves them with no alternative but to go to the ER in seek of regular care.
Under the proposed plan a lot of of individuals who are living devoid of insurance would be covered under Medicaid or a subdivision of this branch of the health care program and because of this they would also be discriminated against when trying to visit a health care practitioner in his/her office. This will inevitably increase the amount of individuals being serviced in the nations emergency rooms.
A closer glimpse at the proposal delivers further reason for concern as it gives no plan to increase the number of providers, while it vastly promises to boost the amount of patients within the system. This will lead to doctors offices being overbooked and turning away patients that require care and these individuals will need to also turn to the ER doctors as their primary care physicians.
Overall, even though the health care reform does allow some to hope, there are certainly a few flaws in the plan. As medical professionals become over booked they will probably become selective trying to accommodate those people with the finest insurance plans first, and leaving the rest with no where else to turn. This brings about a very important question: Is there actually any hope for boosting the health care system in this country?
