So thanks to Obama helthcare is going to become a lot more complicated in this country. Does anyone have any idea how this is going to effect physical therapy? I have been accepted into Missouri State Physical therapy program and am excited to start this fall. Throughout my entire undergrad I kept hearing physical therapy is one of the top ten careers in the country to get into. Is this still going to be true with our new system?
Health Care Reform
- Thread starter Rgardne1
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I started a thread on this on Sunday...lots of discussion/mixed opinions over here:
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=711571
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=711571
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It will end discriminationagainst Americans with pre-existing conditions. It will make health care more affordable, make health insurers more accountable, expand health coverage to all Americans, and make the health system sustainable.It brings greater accountability to health care by laying out common sense rules of the road to keep premiums down and prevent insurance industry abuses and denial of care.
Not too much happened with PT on the healthcare reform front which is disappointing because it was the opportune time to really promote PT has an effective, cost savings measure. There was some success with establishing a pilot project for direct access in rural areas. This could be a step in the right direction. They also once again postponed the Medicare reimbursement cuts to providers under the Physician Fee Schedule. This is really a moot point though. The cuts have been postponed for a number of years already so this wasn't anything really tied into any substantial reform effort and it was expected. Eventually the axe will fall though because of simple numbers and demographics. There is a real possibility Medicare won't exist ten years from now. The estimated Medicare bankruptcy date was 2017 prior to the recession, but due to the current economic situation people are paying less into the system while more people are obtaining services so this date is expected to come much sooner.
It's a very real reality that Medicare doesn't exist ten years from now. No viable solution has been put into place to deal with the bankruptcy issue. The solution to cut costs seem to be squeezing it from providers. Either the government will require doctors to take Medicare patients in order to be licensed, or doctors will most likely drop Medicare patients altogether if reimbursement takes a nose dive. It's also highly likely that primary care will be handled primarily from NPs and PAs in the future simply because they are a cheaper alternative.
I'm not very optimistic that this healthcare reform law will be sustainable. I don't think a health insurance mandate on all citizens when statistics which are most likely overly optimistic state that the unemployment in this country is at ten percent. Most will say that real unemployment is more like 20 percent. For example I'm employed, but for a whole whopping three days per week. The place I'm working for is hiring part-time employees only. They get a tax cut the more they hire thanks to our Jobs bill. Where are the job prospects? One out of five men in this country are unemployed. More and more college graduates are moving to places with greater job prospects such as China. Chinese is the new hot language to know.
Our economy is based on our purchasing power, and that is dwindling away. We my friends are heading toward an inflationary depression. The stimulus money that was created from our federal reserve's printing press and the borrowing of money from other countries that we most likely can't pay back will run out. It would be different if the stimulus plan somehow changed the foundation of our current economy which is dependent on consumer spending and debt, but it didn't. It's attempting to keep the debt bubble high which benefits the banking system. The government won't let housing prices come down to where they should be. Instead they are prompted up by determining how much you can get out in loans. Sound familiar to anyone? It certainly looks like the same thing is going on with student loans. What are the long-term job prospects in this country? Adding a health insurance mandate is only going to depress the purchasing power of Americans making our whole economy weaker.
Nothing was done to decrease costs of healthcare in this country. That was the primary reason for having healthcare reform, but it got turned around into providing healthcare coverage for everyone. The primary rationale for needing healthcare coverage was to stop it from bankrupting this country. Now there are provisions in the plan which hypothetically decrease costs, but all you have to is click on the "Topics in Healthcare" tab on this forum to find out this does nothing to decrease costs. It will only increase it.
The numbers for cutting costs were simply made up without any real substantial evidence to back them up. More people in the health insurance system means the limiting factor in determining healthcare costs is the number of people that can utilize services. This will be determined by the number of providers. Since people HAVE to pay for healthcare insurance they will rationalize that they have to use it. They will complain of any copays, which are increasing for PT outpatient services. People are going to assess how to best utilize their copaying dollars. With decreased discretionary income most likely PT is going to be on the back burner.
Now PT could have won in this if ultimately market influences were allowed to operate throughout the entire healthcare system. Because PT is a low-cost alternative, and can be more effective than some expensive surgical operations, the patient would most likely be encouraged to utilize PT services prior to any expensive surgical intervention. So naturally conservative management would have been utilized first. In the current system, consumer market influences are not operating. There is no cost shift to the consumer so they'll go for the expensive treatment because that's what the doctor ordered, and the doctor most likely benefits financially from promoting surgical intervention over PT.
The only people that win in this healthcare reform law is big government, the pharmaceutical industry, and the insurance industry. All the people that need help and the people that are helping them are the ones that are going to get the raw end of the deal. It amazes me that people are still blinded by what is going on. Maybe they don't care or feel they can't do anything about it. Nonetheless we will all feel the effects of this. It won't be a positive change. I say every healthcare worker goes on strike until real reform occurs and put their resources into informing the American citizen why they are not benefiting from this through advertisements.
The current system rewards charging the maximum allowed for procedures. You can't charge $200 for someone with insurance and then $50 to someone without it. If so then you will soon be getting $50 from the insurance industry if you did. So the person without it pays $200, even if the actual costs of the services aren't that much. To look at what the free market can do for healthcare costs, look at plastic surgery costs or eye surgery costs. The tasks will still have to be done, but they will be done at a level in which the patient/consumer of services can afford it.
What they should have done was limit health insurance to exactly that insurance. If you have a heart attack or stroke than you should have the insurance. It shouldn't be paying for every procedure under the sun. For instance gastric bypass is extremely expensive and many times lacks long-term effectiveness and 1 out of 200 people die. The insurance industry covers this though, but it doesn't cover a long-term effective weight loss plan coordinated by healthcare professionals and based upon measurable results.
I am very worried about the direction this country is taking on a number of issues. The healthcare reform law is just the tip of the iceberg. If you look at the other thread that DancerFutureDPT provided and look at some of the videos I layed out, you will find a sobering reality that bankers, not politicians regardless of political affiliation run this country. The evidence is there. Just recently the congress just passed a law protecting the federal reserve, an institution that is as mush private just as is the federal express, which will protect the federal reserve from a real audit to see where all of OUR future taxpayer money is going. Why is the most powerful privatized entity excluded from audits that any other bank would have to endure? Many believe that the money is going to international banks and friends overseas. So we do have distribution of wealth, its just not in the direction that most would say is favorable. The richer are getting richer and the poorer are getting poorer.
I have zero political affiliation, I'm just attempting to get people informed and involved. I did provide a number of videos that would proclaim I'm an avid Ron Paul supporter. While I do agree with what he says he would do, I've grown skeptical even of him. If you dig deep enough there is evidence to the fact that he could very well be what is called "controlled opposition." The bottom line is that there are a few people at the top that have a whole boatload of money. This influence has infiltrated our political system. The information is out there. I tried to provide some leads. Sadly it seems as if no one cares. Get ready for a bumpy ride people. Hopefully I'm wrong about all this. Needless to say, it just might be a very dangerous move to get in over your head in government-owned debt for a degree that may not be able to pay for itself in the long-run. Student loan debt is the one type of debt you can't get rid of in bankruptcy court, so this decision will impact you for a very long time.
It's a very real reality that Medicare doesn't exist ten years from now. No viable solution has been put into place to deal with the bankruptcy issue. The solution to cut costs seem to be squeezing it from providers. Either the government will require doctors to take Medicare patients in order to be licensed, or doctors will most likely drop Medicare patients altogether if reimbursement takes a nose dive. It's also highly likely that primary care will be handled primarily from NPs and PAs in the future simply because they are a cheaper alternative.
I'm not very optimistic that this healthcare reform law will be sustainable. I don't think a health insurance mandate on all citizens when statistics which are most likely overly optimistic state that the unemployment in this country is at ten percent. Most will say that real unemployment is more like 20 percent. For example I'm employed, but for a whole whopping three days per week. The place I'm working for is hiring part-time employees only. They get a tax cut the more they hire thanks to our Jobs bill. Where are the job prospects? One out of five men in this country are unemployed. More and more college graduates are moving to places with greater job prospects such as China. Chinese is the new hot language to know.
Our economy is based on our purchasing power, and that is dwindling away. We my friends are heading toward an inflationary depression. The stimulus money that was created from our federal reserve's printing press and the borrowing of money from other countries that we most likely can't pay back will run out. It would be different if the stimulus plan somehow changed the foundation of our current economy which is dependent on consumer spending and debt, but it didn't. It's attempting to keep the debt bubble high which benefits the banking system. The government won't let housing prices come down to where they should be. Instead they are prompted up by determining how much you can get out in loans. Sound familiar to anyone? It certainly looks like the same thing is going on with student loans. What are the long-term job prospects in this country? Adding a health insurance mandate is only going to depress the purchasing power of Americans making our whole economy weaker.
Nothing was done to decrease costs of healthcare in this country. That was the primary reason for having healthcare reform, but it got turned around into providing healthcare coverage for everyone. The primary rationale for needing healthcare coverage was to stop it from bankrupting this country. Now there are provisions in the plan which hypothetically decrease costs, but all you have to is click on the "Topics in Healthcare" tab on this forum to find out this does nothing to decrease costs. It will only increase it.
The numbers for cutting costs were simply made up without any real substantial evidence to back them up. More people in the health insurance system means the limiting factor in determining healthcare costs is the number of people that can utilize services. This will be determined by the number of providers. Since people HAVE to pay for healthcare insurance they will rationalize that they have to use it. They will complain of any copays, which are increasing for PT outpatient services. People are going to assess how to best utilize their copaying dollars. With decreased discretionary income most likely PT is going to be on the back burner.
Now PT could have won in this if ultimately market influences were allowed to operate throughout the entire healthcare system. Because PT is a low-cost alternative, and can be more effective than some expensive surgical operations, the patient would most likely be encouraged to utilize PT services prior to any expensive surgical intervention. So naturally conservative management would have been utilized first. In the current system, consumer market influences are not operating. There is no cost shift to the consumer so they'll go for the expensive treatment because that's what the doctor ordered, and the doctor most likely benefits financially from promoting surgical intervention over PT.
The only people that win in this healthcare reform law is big government, the pharmaceutical industry, and the insurance industry. All the people that need help and the people that are helping them are the ones that are going to get the raw end of the deal. It amazes me that people are still blinded by what is going on. Maybe they don't care or feel they can't do anything about it. Nonetheless we will all feel the effects of this. It won't be a positive change. I say every healthcare worker goes on strike until real reform occurs and put their resources into informing the American citizen why they are not benefiting from this through advertisements.
The current system rewards charging the maximum allowed for procedures. You can't charge $200 for someone with insurance and then $50 to someone without it. If so then you will soon be getting $50 from the insurance industry if you did. So the person without it pays $200, even if the actual costs of the services aren't that much. To look at what the free market can do for healthcare costs, look at plastic surgery costs or eye surgery costs. The tasks will still have to be done, but they will be done at a level in which the patient/consumer of services can afford it.
What they should have done was limit health insurance to exactly that insurance. If you have a heart attack or stroke than you should have the insurance. It shouldn't be paying for every procedure under the sun. For instance gastric bypass is extremely expensive and many times lacks long-term effectiveness and 1 out of 200 people die. The insurance industry covers this though, but it doesn't cover a long-term effective weight loss plan coordinated by healthcare professionals and based upon measurable results.
I am very worried about the direction this country is taking on a number of issues. The healthcare reform law is just the tip of the iceberg. If you look at the other thread that DancerFutureDPT provided and look at some of the videos I layed out, you will find a sobering reality that bankers, not politicians regardless of political affiliation run this country. The evidence is there. Just recently the congress just passed a law protecting the federal reserve, an institution that is as mush private just as is the federal express, which will protect the federal reserve from a real audit to see where all of OUR future taxpayer money is going. Why is the most powerful privatized entity excluded from audits that any other bank would have to endure? Many believe that the money is going to international banks and friends overseas. So we do have distribution of wealth, its just not in the direction that most would say is favorable. The richer are getting richer and the poorer are getting poorer.
I have zero political affiliation, I'm just attempting to get people informed and involved. I did provide a number of videos that would proclaim I'm an avid Ron Paul supporter. While I do agree with what he says he would do, I've grown skeptical even of him. If you dig deep enough there is evidence to the fact that he could very well be what is called "controlled opposition." The bottom line is that there are a few people at the top that have a whole boatload of money. This influence has infiltrated our political system. The information is out there. I tried to provide some leads. Sadly it seems as if no one cares. Get ready for a bumpy ride people. Hopefully I'm wrong about all this. Needless to say, it just might be a very dangerous move to get in over your head in government-owned debt for a degree that may not be able to pay for itself in the long-run. Student loan debt is the one type of debt you can't get rid of in bankruptcy court, so this decision will impact you for a very long time.
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=723436
Here is the thread I was referring to. There are a number of threads open on healthcare reform which all have good information. Take in information from a variety of sources to help make an informed decision.
Here is the thread I was referring to. There are a number of threads open on healthcare reform which all have good information. Take in information from a variety of sources to help make an informed decision.
