Recent Issues in Healthcare

Health care reform issue

As a healthcare worker, I was very pleased when President Obama finally signed the legislation that will completely change the nation's health care system. This system has been addresses for several years by a number of Democrats and Republicans but failed. The Affordable Care Act seeks to extend insurance to more than 30 million people, primarily by expanding Medicaid and providing federal subsidies to help lower- and middle-income Americans buy private coverage. It will create insurance exchanges for those buying individual policies and prohibit insurers from denying coverage on the basis of pre-existing conditions.

To reduce the soaring cost of Medicare, it creates a panel of experts to limit government reimbursement to only those treatments shown to be effective, and creates incentives for providers to "bundle'' services rather than charge by individual procedure (New York Times, 2012). The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 ("Obamacare") is a major step forward in the improvement of health in this country, however it has many controversies.

In The New York Time, an article written by Uwe E. Reinhart, address the issue of a possible shortage of doctor in relation to President Obama's health care law that was upheld by the Supreme Court on June 28, 2012. According to this article, a study by the authoritative Association of American Medical Colleges predicted that by 2025 the nation's demand for doctors active in patient care will be 916,000, while the projected supply is 785,400.

This report also predicted that there will be a shortage of 130,600 patient-care doctors, of which about half represent primary-care physicians. It is also said that the new law will not only affect physicians but the well insure who would have to share scarce healthcare resources with the newly insured under the new law. The author poses his question; "is it better to no insurance and to ability to pay for care or having insurance but have to wait for doctor's appointment to get non-emergency care"?

Other resources has indicated that, The American Association of Medical Colleges strongly support the notion that due to the passage of health care reform the United State of America will face a serious shortage of both primary care and specialist physicians to care for an aging and growing population. The AAMC's claimed that we are dangerously close to a "true crisis" if newly insured Americans enter the health care system and our population continues to age. If current physicians leave the practice early because of the health law, the problem will get worst.

For a very long time the shortage of primary care health professionals especially nurses had been of concern. For many critics, President Obama proposal of The Patient Protection and Affordable Care is just a boost to strengthen what was already known. This nudge just heightened and intensified the interest and concern expressed by many physicians, policymakers and other stakeholders about the future of primary care. Predicting that there will be a shortage of doctors especially primary care physicians is stale news. However, if the problem is not addresses early, it will only get worse when the new law is in effect.

If this prediction is true, it will create a negative impact on medical students as they witness many of their primary care mentors unhappy about the future of their career. Then the younger doctors will likely switch careers and the students that were considering a career in medicine will pursue other venues. Subsequent, there will be less health care (physicians) providers and the demand for services will reach an all-time high.

Eventually, the adverse effect will trickle down to the patients where they will have long wait for appointments, and limited care. Limited care will compromise the doctor-patient relationship which is essential to both the patient and the physician. Building a close relationship