18 Mar 2010 ObamaCare Would Harm Health Care Quality, Survey of Doctors Says

Washington, DC – ObamaCare would drive practicing doctors out of business and suppress the recruitment of new physicians, resulting in long waits and rationed care for health care consumers.

So concludes a new paper “ObamaCare Would Drive Doctors Out of Business” by Matt Patterson, health policy analyst for the National Center For Public Policy Research.

Among the findings:

* ObamaCare’s high taxes and new regulations would increase doctors’ overhead and red tape.

* At the same time, millions of newly insured individuals would swell their patient rosters.

* The increased work load, costs and stress, coupled with a decrease in income, would make the practice of medicine more trouble than it’s worth for many doctors.

* In one recent survey, 46 percent of responding primary care physicians say they would quit or try to quit medicine if ObamaCare passes.

* In addition, 63 percent of physicians would prefer Congress take a gradual, incremental approach to health care reform, as opposed to the massive, one-size-fits-all overhaul favored by the Obama administration.

* The shrinking pool of physicians brought on by ObamaCare, coupled with the coming retirement of the Baby Boomers, would put massive stresses on an already overburdened health care system, leading to rationing, long waits, and unhappy, overworked medical care professionals.

Says Patterson, “President Obama and Congressional leaders promise to subsidize health insurance for millions of Americans, but what good is insurance if you can’t find a doctor?  Our elected leaders have continued to ignore the public’s opposition to this bill; now they are ignoring our doctors, who warn of grave consequences if this legislation passes.”

“ObamaCare Would Drive Doctors Out of Business” is a publication of The National Center For Public Policy Research, a conservative, free-market non-profit think-tank established in 1982.  It is supported by the voluntary gifts of over 100,000 individual recent supporters, and receives less than one percent of its revenue from corporate sources.