Why people hate health reform

Here is a link to an Op-Ed I wrote with two colleagues at Duke, in which we provide a novel explanation for why so many Americans hate Obamacare.

Here is a link to an Op-Ed I wrote with two colleagues at Duke, in which we provide a novel explanation for why so many Americans hate Obamacare.
With its expansion of Medicaid eligibility, the Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. Obamacare) was supposed to go a long way towards providing healthcare coverage to millions of uninsured Americans. That accomplishment was dealt a large blow by the Supreme Court, when it forbade the federal government from requiring states to expand Medicaid coverage. Nevertheless, many states…
In an earlier post, I presented some data on which kind of physicians in the United States are most and least likely to see new patients who receive Medicaid, the state/federal program to pay healthcare costs for low income people. Now a recent study lays out some reasons why many physicians are so reluctant to see such patients….
Imagine you are a small business owner deciding whether to hire two new employees, your 50th and 51st workers respectively. Would you hire them knowing that, by surpassing the magic number 50, you will now be obligated under Obamacare to pay a penalty unless you offer all your employees affordable healthcare insurance? Imagine you are owner of…
Many companies are large enough they self-insure—they take on the financial risk of paying for their employees’ health expenses. In these cases, there is no insurance company around to negotiate prices. Instead, your employer must bring itself to the negotiating table (or maybe, these days, to the negotiation-Zoom-room?). That might mean that your costs, including…
A couple of years ago I was invited to speak at the annual meeting of the American Medical Association in Chicago, to discuss the morality of whether physicians should ration care from their patients.
read more
View original post and comments at Scientocracy
I have written a couple of pieces lately documenting the high percentage of physicians who refuse to take Medicaid patients, and some of the reasons for their refusal. One of my pieces prompted a physician to email me with his take on this matter. I am going to quote from that email, but take out…