A Sign At My Doctor’s Office

It read (paraphrasing from memory):

Medicare does not pay enough for medical services and, as a result, more and more doctors have to decline to treat Medicare patients. Congress must approve increases in Medicare payments. Please contact Senators Mikulski and Cardin and tell them you want Medicare payments to be increased.

Of course, this type of pleading for my tax dollars is offensive, but there’s more to this that I probably don’t have to spell out for the average LRC reader. How many times have the healthcare reform proponents insisted that there will not be rationing of medical care? How many times have they denied the unsustainability of Medicare? The doctors who opt out of providing service for Medicare patients are doing what anyone would do who needs to make a living: rationing care!

Fewer doctors participating means fewer doctors available for Medicare patients. If opting out were illegal with a public option or co-op or whatever, then the doctors would find some other way to effectively ration care – perhaps by spending less time with patients (if that’s possible!), not taking an interest in patient well-being, or numerous other possibilities. Economics demands that humans will react to central planning in this way.

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11:05 am on September 2, 2009