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Monday, February 13, 2006Ironically, the government is now trying to address a doctor shortage that was deliberately created by governments in Ontario and across Canada just over a decade ago. Indeed, back in the early 1990s, the government of then NDP premier Bob Rae gave the University of Toronto up to $10 million a year to produce fewer doctors. At that time, politicians were looking for a way to blame the rising costs of health care on anyone but themselves. They chose doctors. Backed by research from compliant academics, politicians argued health costs were rising so fast because there were too many greedy doctors ordering too many tests. ....As it turned out, one group of experts did get it right back then. The Association of Canadian Medical Colleges predicted that, given demographic patterns, reducing the number of medical students would lead to a doctor shortage. They said it would happen right about now when, as it turns out, one million people in Ontario alone can’t find a family doctor. Of course, back then, the politicians dismissed the Colleges as being motivated by self interest. We do the same thing here, but via a different route. Congress's plan to cut the cost of Medicare by cutting their payments to physicians each year effectively has the same result - it cuts the supply of physicians, or at the very least the access of Medicare enrollees to physicians. posted by Sydney on 2/13/2006 11:35:00 PM 2 comments 2 Comments:
Giant shrimp. By 9:04 AM , atThe USA is developing a doctor shortage crisis, too. It's a demographic problem--a huge baby boom older population, including a huge wave of retiring boomer doctors, and a smaller younger population burdened with both the costs of their care and fewer docs to do it with. The savvy people are developing good relationships with doctors to make sure they have a care team when the scarcity problem hits. By kentuckyliz, at 8:11 AM |
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