Obamacare and you

[Admiral Yi]

Interesting that I believe the US has a below average number of doctors to population.

Totally consistent with a monopoly (the AMA) limiting supply to keep prices firm.

[Sheilbh]

Totally consistent with a monopoly (the AMA) limiting supply to keep prices firm.

How does the AMA limit supply?

I'm assuming they work totally differently from the British doctors' union.

[Admiral Yi]

How does the AMA limit supply?

They control the # of medical school spaces as well as licensing.

[Sheilbh]

Interesting. Licensing and regulating medical schools in the UK is the responsibility of the General Medical Council. They're in effect the regulator of the medical profession. They regulate schools, but also license and revalidate doctors qualifications and you can also report a doctor to them and they've various disciplinary measures up to striking them off the register.

I'm not sure how the number of places at medical school are set (there's 8000) but I'd guess something to do with the schools, the GMC and the government negotiating.

The BMA are explicitly a doctors' union.

[The Minsky Moment]

[Higher level of deaths by violence then Israel?

Red-blooded gun-armed Americans are far better shots than some Hezbolloney clown with a Qassem rocket.
Plus Israel has an unfair advantage.  They have all Jewish doctors.

[Razgovory]

I don't think I've ever seen a whore pill commercial.

Never saw a Yaz commercial?

[DGuller]

Wait, those are whore pills?

[Razgovory]

Wait, those are whore pills?

Well to be fair they also cause blood clots.

[DGuller]

I knew I should've asked my doctor. 

[alfred russel]

But you've also got way lower smoking rates than Europe and a younger population. Healthcare should be cheaper.

US healthcare has many many problems and cost is one of them. Please don't think I'm defending US healthcare vs. europe.

However, I think that after a certain minimum standard of care, life expectancy is much more of a function of lifestyle and genetics than the quality of healthcare. None of those factors are consistent when comparing Europe to the US, and I suspect healthcare is not the driver of our premature deaths.

[Fate]

Interesting that I believe the US has a below average number of doctors to population.

Totally consistent with a monopoly (the AMA) limiting supply to keep prices firm.

No. The AMA's policy isn't to limit the supply of doctors. They've been lobbying to increase the numbers for the past two decades. In fact the AAMC has increased the number of medical student positions by 30% over the past decade.

The supply of doctors is limited by the amount of Graduated Medical Education funding from Medicare and thus the US Congress. They capped the number of residency training positions in 1997 with the Balanced Budget Act and it hasn't increased since then.

[11B4V]

To Cut Costs, ObamaCare Plans Drop Top Docs, Hospitals

(Newser) – If you have a health care provider you really like, look very carefully at any plan you buy on HealthCare.gov. To keep costs down—a top Obama administration priority—insurers on the government's health care exchange are offering smaller networks that cut out the country's most prestigious (and most expensive) hospitals and doctors, the Washington Post reports. In one much-watched case, the Seattle Children's Hospital has filed a lawsuit against Washington's insurance commissioner over all the plans excluding it. It's an especially expensive hospital, the region's top insurer explains; a pediatric appendectomy there costs $23,000, compared to $14,100 at another local hospital.

The Affordable Care Act requires plans to include enough providers to guarantee quality care, but offers no guidelines on what that entails. Some hospitals, such as the Cleveland Clinic, are pulling themselves off of plans, complaining that the reimbursement rates are too low. Some experts actually argue that these splits are good things—top-flight hospitals provide essential services, they explain, but routine care can be had elsewhere at a cheaper cost. But critics say these moves are producing a two-tiered system, and creating real dilemmas for families like Jeffrey Blank's; his daughter has a rare bone disorder, and is used to getting routine checkups from Seattle Children's.

http://www.newser.com/story/177974/to-cut-costs-obamacare-plans-drop-top-docs-hospitals.html?utm_source=part&utm_medium=united&utm_campaign=rss_top

GOP Plots All-Out War on ObamaCare

(Newser) – If it sounds like Republicans are reading from the same playbook in their ObamaCare offensive, it's because they are. A memo sent to House Republicans this week detailed an unusually focused attack plan, the New York Times explains. Republicans are to focus en masse on one of the program's failings, then swiftly pivot to the next as soon as that narrative gains traction, constantly keeping Democrats on their heels. First they focused on the website, then on dropped plans, and next they plan to shift to rate shocks.

"Yeah, there is a method being followed here," one rep says, "but really these stories are creating themselves." (This story, for example, must have been music to strategists' ears.) Democrats, meanwhile, have developed a counter-strategy: The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is set to launch a campaign contrasting ObamaCare with "CruzCare," in hopes of highlighting how limited Republican policy alternatives are, the Washington Post reports. Ted Cruz is actually planning to roll out his own plan, but Democrats expect it to be the a potpourri of standard-issue Republican policies, rather than a credible ObamaCare alternative.

http://www.newser.com/story/177962/gop-plots-all-out-war-on-obamacare.html

[grumbler]

So, high-priced suppliers are pricing themselves out of the market?  Sounds great.   

Republicans are playing politics with health care, just like Democrats?  Color me shocked.

Overall, that works out to be good news.  Thanks, B4.

[derspiess]

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/11/cbs-poll-obamacare-record-lows-100115.html

The president's signature health care law is also at a new low. Approval of Obamacare stands at 31 percent with disapproval at 61 percent, the worst figures for the law in CBS's polling.

Only one in three survey respondents said they believe the government will be able to fix the health care exchange website by the White House's end-of-the-month deadline, and just 7 percent said the Affordable Care Act should be left in place without any changes. Forty-eight percent said it needs some changes, and 43 percent want it repealed entirely.

:sadface:

[Berkut]

So 55% think it should be kept in some form or another. Do those numbers come as a surprise?