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obama care affect optometry
Started by surfer120
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The answer is the same as it was a months or years ago.....and that answer is....
It depends.
Sorry. lol
Too early to know, but I'd guess that it wont do anything for ODs.
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There are some much-needed aspects to Obamacare that we, as a nation, should have done a long time ago. Addressing the issues of pre-existing condition exclusion, benefit caps, and expulsion from coverage is a milestone. The problem with Obamacare, in my mind, is that there's not enough money to pay for it all and it's been sold to the public on a few of its merits, while the majority of the plan is actually quite damaging in the long run. The fact is, much of the money to pay for all of this will come out of doctors' pockets and that won't be good for anyone in the long term. As we have come to expect from Obama, he's comfortable taking more and more money from those who work and giving it to those who don't.
What government program has ever been implemented at or even close to budget forecasts? Answer: none. They will ALWAYS go over budget - always. Where's the money going to come from when the estimates fall short? You and me. We'll see more reimbursement cuts, more taxation of small business owners, more regulations, more of everything that makes it harder to survive in a capitalist economy. That's just the way Obama wants it - more for government to do if private docs and private business start to fall off the map in droves. Doctors are already "overpaid." We're part of the 1% we keep hearing about. As it stands now, I've read that there will be about a 16% reimbursement cut to specialists over the next 3 years, which will remain frozen for 10 years after that. What's that going to do to private specialists? Easy - it's going to drive some out of business and it will decrease the patient care available at the ones that survive. Is that good for America? And what will happen when a good portion of the 32 million uninsured folks (many of whom are voluntarily uninsured because they don't want to pay for insurance) decide to simply pay the relatively small penalty instead of buying insurance? Well, you and I will be required to pay for that patient's care in the end. We're going to be seeing those additional patients, but we won't be getting paid for them in the end. (Actually, I'm almost out of optometry completely so I guess I won't be seeing them 🙂)
What I see happening is that Obama is, by his policies, trying to do everything he can to stifle the small business owner. He's doing these things under the guise of "taking a little from the big corporation owners who are sipping margaritas in Cabo," but in reality, most CEOs in the US are owners of small businesses with a few employees, not heads of giant corporations (whom he holds his hands out to for donations quite regularly). He leaves that little fact out when he bashes big corporations and panders to the handout recipients he depends on for votes.
There are some good parts to Obamacare, I won't deny that, but overall, it's going to spell more trouble for private docs, which is just as he wants. If it's not repealed, America needs to get ready for fewer private docs, more government docs, longer wait-times, shorter physician visits, and much, much more frustration in the doctors who treat them. We're heading toward government managed healthcare, regardless of what Obamacare looks like on the surface. From what I read, that's where it will drive us. If the government can't run the post office, I can't imagine what it will do to our healthcare system.
None of us really knows what will happen so all we can do is look at the components and deduce what forces it will weaken and bolster in the healthcare system. I don't see much good coming out of it when all is said and done.
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I predict it will be bad for optometry and all of health care. Obama has tried to revamp the health care system without taking care of the # 1 issue: Self responsiblity. We can't just let people eat themselves to morbid obesity, smoke 10 packs of cigs a day, eat bacon 3 meals a day for years and then tell them they have a free ticket to any and all doctors and medicines they need for the rest of their fat-ass life. This is EXACTLY what we do for welfare losers right now and the system is terrible abused.
Same with fools that skydive, ride motorcycles or do other high-risk activities. They should have to pay extra for their risky lifestyle.
Any other way to pass out health care simply will not work. We all see welfare patients drive up in Escalades and Mercedes to get their free exam and glasses. Happens all the time. I just had a welfare patient tell me she needs her Medicaid glasses back quickly because she and her family were going to Hawaii on vacation. I'll bet every doctor on the SDN could tell you how the welfare system is abused daily.
A law set up to help ends up being abused 80% of the time because most people always take the path of least resistance.
So I predict, ODs will be busier...........but not being paid more. The $80 exam will become the $40 exam. So you will see double the number of patients (with no bathroom break) for the same money.
Perhaps, since Obama likes unions so much, he will let doctors form unions for the first time and protest our right to fair pay. But I don't see that happening.
Same with fools that skydive, ride motorcycles or do other high-risk activities. They should have to pay extra for their risky lifestyle.
Any other way to pass out health care simply will not work. We all see welfare patients drive up in Escalades and Mercedes to get their free exam and glasses. Happens all the time. I just had a welfare patient tell me she needs her Medicaid glasses back quickly because she and her family were going to Hawaii on vacation. I'll bet every doctor on the SDN could tell you how the welfare system is abused daily.
A law set up to help ends up being abused 80% of the time because most people always take the path of least resistance.
So I predict, ODs will be busier...........but not being paid more. The $80 exam will become the $40 exam. So you will see double the number of patients (with no bathroom break) for the same money.
Perhaps, since Obama likes unions so much, he will let doctors form unions for the first time and protest our right to fair pay. But I don't see that happening.
amen to that
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