So the latest and greatest healthcare saga is the yearly congressional tradition– “let’s cut doctor salaries by 21% as mandated by a 1997 law!” There’s lots of posturing between congress and the AMA.
I double dog dare congress to do this. And then watch what happens to the numbers of physicians who accept Medicare.
You see…the more restrictions, regulations, and slavery that happens to doctors, the more they’ll just say screw it, I no longer take Medicare (or for that matter, any private insurance). They’ll only take cash. And since people won’t be able to use their Medicare anymore because they won’t be able to find a doctor within 100 miles who accepts Medicare, well, people will simply have to pay cash for healthcare.
How would you feel if your employer decided to cut your salary by 21%? You’d find a different employer. And that employer is the ever increasing cash market of healthcare, a $250 billion dollar a year industry that’s two and half times larger than the combined yearly revenue of Google, Apple, Microsoft, Yahoo, and Craigslist. But of course this $250B is only 1/10th of the total yearly healthcare market of $2.5 trillion. But what’s a few hundred billion amongst friends?