Ali Meyer:
A narrow majority of physicians say Obamacare has a negative impact on medical practice, including on the quality and cost of health care, according to a reportfrom the Journal of the American Medical Association.
The report found that 52 percent of physicians look on Obamacare as unfavorable to the general medical situation, while 48 percent say it is favorable.
According to the report, 36 percent of physicians said the Affordable Care Act had a negative impact on the medical practice overall. Only 23 percent said it had a positive impact. Thirty-one percent physicians said the healthcare law had no impact, and 9 percent said they were not sure if it had an impact.
Twenty-five percent of doctors said that Obamacare had a negative impact on the quality of patient care, while only 18 percent said it had a positive impact. Thirty-five percent said the healthcare law had a negative impact on the ability to meet patient demand, and only 10 percent said it had a positive impact in this regard.
Finally, 44 percent of physicians said Obamacare had a negative impact on the cost of patient health care and only 21 percent said it had a positive impact.
“There is frustration about higher cost to patients, out-of-pocket costs, and many high deductible plans,” said Dr. Wanda Filer, president of the American Academy of Family Physicians. “Also, it is some patients’ first time having insurance and they are facing premiums and deductibles and not sure how it works and some have to educate patients.”
When it came to access to health care and insurance across the country, more physicians were positive about the health law’s impact. Forty-eight percent of physicians said they had positive feelings about Obamacare in this regard, and only 24 percent reported a negative impression.
“We are finding a lot of our members are noticing a positive impact on patient access to healthcare and to insurance,” said Filer. “Six of 10 physicians say they are seeing more newly insured patients. Now more uninsured patients are seeing more access to primary and preventive care.”
The report suggested that doctors are frustrated by the administrative requirements generated by the law.
“Many providers feel that the amount of time they have with each patient and the time they spend on insurance administration issues have gotten worse,” states the report. “Four of 10 physicians and more than a third of midlevel providers said the amount of time they have available to spend with each patient has gotten worse since January 2014.”
Looks like we need an Rx for the media to tell us how great it is working.
Here’s what the free market system is doing to medical care in America. Everybody is kicking Obama’s efforts to make medical care more widely available. So why is there no attention paid on the right to this sort of outrage?
@Greg: thats the drug companies not doctor care. New drugs are always expensive to pay for development costs. They are not a charitable organization they have to make as much money as they can from the drug til it goes generic. Outrageous, and heartless yes, but care provided by the Veterans Admin is more outrageous and twice as heartless. Government run healthcare pffft.
There’s no indication that development costs were anywhere near high enough to rationalize charging patients $1,000 per pill for a drug that they’ll die without.
At which point the interviewer could have slapped the guy up the side of his head, and I would have applauded the lapse of journalistic impartiality. He’s holding out for public outrage against the VA—an entirely possible outcome, given the current mindless hostility toward government—which could provide the company that owns rights to the drug with carte blanche to shake down the taxpayers. I’m guessing he’d get his cut.
@Greg: Uh, he was going to make it AFFORDABLE. Mandating it while jacking up the price is not making it “widely available”.
@Greg:
Obamacare has not one damn thing to do with availability. It has every thing to do with forcing me to help pay for coverage (coverage and availability are not the same thing, except you’re too dense to understand that) for others while I saw my health care insurance costs go from 0 to now over $300 each for me and my spouse.
I’m gonna love it when the Cadillac tax kicks in and all those CWA members that promoted Obamacare have to pay an additional 40% for their health care insurance that was free up until Obamacare came along.
@Greg: Its not mindless hostility, it anger toward the bait and switch, the lying. AHCA designed to fail to usher in the “healthcare” our poor vets are now subject to.
As far as lowering the prices they set up near monopolies no competition what was just barely affordable before they F*cked with it is now unaffordable. All healthcare now must be based on their model so no choice in coverage. Now the major providers are jumping ship, more people have or will lose their insurance than have gained. It has forced employers to cut hours to under 30 per week so they are not forced to provide expensive crappy coverage .
@Greg: There was attention. It was universally condemned.
@retire05, #6:
Tell that to some 17 million people who previously couldn’t get health insurance. That’s the net gain, by the way.
The Rand study has come up with a result similar to that produced by Gallup polling.
@kitt, #7:
It isn’t Obamacare that has produced the astronomical drug price markups that are keeping vets from getting life saving medication.
@Greg: 22 million signed up; that does not mean they qualified for the subsidies or GOT insurance. However, the 6 million that lost their coverage, which they liked… well, they definitely lost theirs.
It was also revealed that HHS “accidentally” included people getting dental insurance along with the numbers for health care insurance. Oopsie. I’m sure that was just an oversight, not an attempt to inflate failed numbers.
What did those who got insurance get? Many got higher premiums along with sky-high deductibles. But, since they are FORCED to buy it, by golly, they have it. They pay for it. They just can’t afford to use it.
Meanwhile, the exchanges are going under. This is going to be just wonderful, isn’t it, Greg?
@Bill, #22:
How many of them lost coverage because corporations used Obamacare as cover to dump employee and retiree health insurance as a cost cutting measure?
Fortunately, the Affordable Care Act guarantees such people the ability to obtain new coverage despite preexisting medical conditions. It also guarantees that their new coverage will meet minimum standards that many previous plans didn’t.
Many of the state exchanges don’t seem to be particularly efficient, compared with the federal exchange. Perhaps they should go under, if they can’t perform well. That will leave the people they served with the option of utilizing a federal exchange that works better at half the cost.
@Greg: All new drugs are expensive always have been. You are correct, AHCA did us no favors on the price of drugs seems they couldn’t care less about that, Drugs purchased from overseas sources are much cheaper or thru Canada. But drugs are not the subject its Obamacare scroll up and see that. Perhaps the government should make a deal with the drug companies for discounts. Is there any room for common sense solutions in a liberal brain or only we need another billion page law a new agency and a few thousand more regulations perhaps.
@Greg: 42,000 per vet to Cure them of a disease THEY gave them
In 2013, Vietnam veteran Zion Yisrael was told he had five years to live. He has stage 4 liver disease, caused by hepatitis C — which has infected as many as 230,000 veterans. Most veterans contracted it in Vietnam where it was spread by battlefield blood transfusions and vaccinations.
Well lets see maybe they could cut a couple of corners in the massive budget somewhere hmmm how bout a couple of the presidents fancy dinner dates in Paris or Marthas vinyard that should cure at least 1 vet. But that self centered toad wouldnt sacrifice for his country would he.
If you wonder why only 52% of working doctors think badly of ObamaCare just recall how many doctors have already voted with their feet.
Early retirements, (one doctor I had did this) switching to medical-not-doctor careers, (a CA’s neighbor did that) opting out of public practice and into ”concierge medicine. (yup, I know one of these, too.)
IF all those doctors and EX-doctors were asked to vote in this poll ObamaCare would have over 60% of people our of medical school who hate it or dislike it.
@Greg:
Ever read your health care insurance policy, Greggie Goebbels? Well, I have. And now I can thank Obamacare for the fact that my husband and I both have maternity care/prostrate coverage.
I know the women of the U.S. are all now grateful for having prostrate coverage.
@Nanny G:
Nanny, many of the doctors I know are either leaving practice or going to a concierge practice. My own GP no longer accepts new Medicare patients (limiting it to existing patients) and hasn’t taken Medicaid for years.
Seniors who retire to Texas are now having a devil of a time finding a doctor that accepts Medicare. Medicaid patients are in even worse shape. No doctor wants to work for half of their salary. I guarantee you, Greggie Goebbels wouldn’t take a 50% cut in pay. Remember, liberals are not all that charitable except with other people’s money.
Years ago dentists went to a cash basis only. You pay for your services and if you have dental insurance, they will give you a receipt listing all the codes for services rendered. I see doctors also starting to require payment at time of service and giving you a coded receipt to submit to your insurance company.
Democrats, ever ready to screw up anything they can.
I can’t help but notice that the percentage of all doctors reporting the Affordable Care Act to have had a negative impact is less than one-half for every question asked. A majority of all responses to every question indicated either no negative impact or improvements.
The negative perceptions clearly correlate with a republican party affiliation. What aren’t republicans negative about?
@Greg:
NONE of those initial 6 million. Those were people dropped because Obamacare rules changed the requirements… now old men needed maternity coverage and the policies they had hadn’t thought of that.
Obamacare is a wreck.