Doctors Are Part of Health Care Too

Obamacare imposes sweeping reforms on health carebut neglects those who provide it.
By JEFFREY WANG
As a freshman, I had an optimistic vision of the medical professionof having a respectable profession, of being my own boss, of setting my own hours and fees. Four years later, that is slipping away, and if nothing is done it may be gone by the time I finish medical school.

In his eagerness to increase access to health care, President Obama apparently forgot about those who make that access possible. Now, doctors have to work longer hours, endure restrictive limitations, and face smaller paychecks. This is not the way to reform health carewe must help the doctors first and foremost.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care ActObamacarehas two main goals: to increase health insurance coverage, and to reduce the cost of care for both patients and the government. It tackles the first by requiring that individuals purchase insurance, while requiring insurance companies to cover more groups (for example, people with pre-existing conditions). The second is dealt with through provisions that, among other things, cut $716 billion from Medicare and require insurance providers to spend at least 80% of their income from premiums on meaningful things like care improvement.

But these reforms are too superficial and come too quickly to possibly have as positive of an impact as they are intended to. The 30 million newly insured patients comprise nearly 10% of the

US population. Meanwhile, the Association of American Medical Colleges estimates that in less than seven years the nation will be facing a shortage of over 90,000 physicians.

We have all spent our fair share of time in the waiting room. Emilia Gilbert, who was taken to the emergency room for a hairline fracture of her nose, spent six hours at the hospital; of these, she says, most of it was spent waiting. She saw a resident physician for fifteen minutes.

The drastic increase of patients practically overnight with no matching increase in doctors means that physicians will be forced to hire more staff and nurses to deal with the patients that they are literally unable to see, which will unquestionably result in longer wait times, lower quality of care, and higher costs for the doctor, not to mention a bastardisation of the doctor-patient relationship into a cold assembly-line.

Increased strain on doctors will also markedly decrease effectivenessinstead creating counterintuitive consequencesof the cost-cutting provisions. More than half of the Medicare cuts will slash the programs reimbursements to health care providers. This will affect many doctors in the form of a 16.7% drop in income that is impossible to ignore.

Beverly Frake thought she was lucky when she moved into an apartment across from a medical complex, but in the waiting room she was informed that they just dont take Medicare patientsmany doctors have closed their doors to new patients from the program due to fiscal impossibility. The consequences are obvious: a lack of care and influx of denied patients that will likely drive prices higherbad news for the baby boomer generation.

The insurance provision itself will also lead to higher prices. Obamacare requires companies to cover certain essential health benefits, some of which were not previously covered by default;

mandating something doesnt make it free, though, and premiums must rise to cover these additional costs. And thanks to simple supply-and-demand economics, doctors are liable to raise fees in the face of the influx of patients.

The root problem is obvious: there are not enough doctors. Obamacare loads already-stressed physicians with even more patients, and this will inevitably result in lower quality health care, loss of the physician-patient relationship, and (very possibly) higher costs.

It turns out that Congress funds only 100,000 medical residencies per year, thanks to ironicallythe American Medical Association, which made this Faustian bargain in exchange for higher salaries. Unfortunately, its working, and high physician salaries are a primary factor behind exorbitant health costs. Opening up the medical profession would kill two birds with one stonethe physician shortage would be lessened, and it would be an important first step to reducing the cost of health care.

To be sure, Obamacares goals are worthy reforms that America direly needs. But until our physicians are adequately prepared to deal with them, they will simply make things worse. The reforms must be postponed, or at least implemented at a slower rate.

Running twenty miles on day one of training improves nothing. Reform must be implemented gradually from the bottom upwards. President Obama must learn that quantity can never replace quality.

Mr. Wang is a senior at Flintridge Preparatory School and intends to take a pre-med track in college, attend medical school, and become a doctor. His interests include anaesthesiology, radiology, and extensively editing writing assignments to fit within their bloody word limits.