Curmudgeon's Corner

Health Care Crystal Ball

Posted by Al Campbell on May 10, 2011

Healthcare, Political, Quality of Life, U.S.

The PPACA (that is the law that “has to be passed so we can see what is in it” according to Ms. Pelosi) aka the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act has been patterned after what I refer to as RomneyCare in Massachusetts.

RomneyCare has been in operation since 2006 and there is a track record that we can use to predict what the PPACA will act like in our collective futures.

Recent reports and surveys have been released and give us a very real picture of our national future.  The Massachusetts law was touted as reducing the overload on Emergency Rooms because everyone would have health insurance coverage.  75% of the ER physicians responding to the survey said that their ER patent counts continued to increase.

Part of this is no doubt just habit, but another major factor is the shortage of primary care physicians that existed when that law was passed and which has gotten worse rather than better.

The waiting times for an appointment in Massachusetts have gotten no better and probably are worse under RomneyCare.  The current average wait ranged from 24 days for an appointment with a pediatrician to 48 days for an appointment with an internist.  The internist wait has actually improved since it was as high as 53 days in 2010 when that survey was conducted.  The waits for family practice physician appointments, gastroenterologists. orthopedists and OB/Gyn physicians increased year over year.

Roughly half of Massachusetts’ adult primary doctors are no longer accepting new patients.

This is the result of RomneyCare in Massachusetts; what will we experience from ObamaCare in the rest of the country given its close resemblance to the Massachusetts program?