I’m a physician, and what is not being reported are the number of physicians fleeing medicine all together. Our most experienced oncologist at this hospital just announced his retirement as of January 1st. He’s 52. The cardiology group will stop seeing hospital patients, general surgeons not taking ER call, neurologists are longer performing EMGs, and I could go on for pages. My group is the third biggest group in the country in my specialty. We experienced 26% GROWTH this past year and our revenue was DOWN 17% from the previous year. There are even more draconian cuts coming in January. MOST of my specialty will be forced to close their practice permanently as they will lose money with every patient they see. You cannot make that up on volume. This means there will be hospitals that will literally have to stop all patient care activities as no department in the hospital can function, by law, without my specialty.
As bad as anyone THOUGHT Obamacare MIGHT be, it will be FAR, FAR WORSE. I stated years ago that this might be the single most destructive piece of legislation in the history of the world as it will simultaneously with a single pen stroke destroy the economy, destroy the best health care system ever seen, and put more people into the unemployment line than we’ve ever seen before.