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ERCougar · 07-15-2008, 06:56 PM

I can see a lot of the benefits of socialized medicine. My chief concern is selfish but real--doctors will lose any sort of bargaining position. Pres Bush is about to veto a bill passed to temporarily fix a funding glitch in Medicare that cuts payments by 10%. We have to fight this every year, it comes down to the wire every year, and the only reason Congress listens is that doctors threaten to stop taking Medicare patients. Most doctors can threaten to do this because they have plenty of privately insured patients. If we switch to a one-payer system, doctors no longer have any leverage to prevent this kind of cut. Realize that once overhead is taken into account, a 10% cut in payment leads to about a 20% cut in income. Couple that with a 20% absolute tax raise (50% relative raise) that I've already discussed, and I'm not really excited about a one-payer system.

07-15-2008, 06:56 PM	#1
ERCougar Senior Member Join Date: Oct 2007 Posts: 1,589	Socialized medicine I can see a lot of the benefits of socialized medicine. My chief concern is selfish but real--doctors will lose any sort of bargaining position. Pres Bush is about to veto a bill passed to temporarily fix a funding glitch in Medicare that cuts payments by 10%. We have to fight this every year, it comes down to the wire every year, and the only reason Congress listens is that doctors threaten to stop taking Medicare patients. Most doctors can threaten to do this because they have plenty of privately insured patients. If we switch to a one-payer system, doctors no longer have any leverage to prevent this kind of cut. Realize that once overhead is taken into account, a 10% cut in payment leads to about a 20% cut in income. Couple that with a 20% absolute tax raise (50% relative raise) that I've already discussed, and I'm not really excited about a one-payer system.