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<p>Not at all; it’s good politics.</p>
<p><a href=“ConsumerWatch: Some Doctors Surprised To Be On Covered California Provider List - CBS San Francisco”>http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2014/02/10/consumerwatch-some-doctors-surprised-to-be-on-covered-california-provider-list/</a></p>
<p>$134=standard office visit
$87=reimbursement from standard insurance policy
$84=reimbursement from Medicare
$54=reimbursement from Covered California</p>
<p>From comments in this article it sounds like the California Medical Association is going to lobby for standard reimbursement rates from Covered California for all doctors at higher rates. The major doctor groups can negotiate with the insurers for higher reimbursements. Independent doctors don’t have that clout and are left out of the network. The article doesn’t say how high the reimbursement is for doctors in major medical group practices. </p>
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<p>To sidetrack this thread a bit - do you meet the 1/150 wrong airport category BD? :p</p>
<p><a href=“Planes landed at wrong airports 150 times over 2 decades – New York Daily News”>http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/pilots-head-wrong-airports-article-1.1608410</a></p>
<p>I need to land in San Jose next week. Really hope they don’t waste time trying to land in Moffett Field military base.</p>
<p>“For example, President said, if a doctor bills $134 for a standard office visit, a standard insurance policy will reimburse the physician $87. But under one of the new Covered California policies, the same insurer will reimburse the physician just $59. By comparison, even Medicare pays more, at $84.”</p>
<p>I think $59 is too low. The insurance company pays $59. What does the patient pay in addition to the insurance? </p>
<p>Last year, my co-pay was $40. If the insurance company paid $87, that is $127 a visit.</p>
<p>This year my co-pay is $60. If the insurance company pays $59, the doctor recieves $119.</p>
<p>The doctor is out $8. This can add up though. </p>
<p>I would like to see how much co-pays have risen to make a comparison between this year and last.</p>
<p>“To sidetrack this thread a bit - do you meet the 1/150 wrong airport category BD?”</p>
<p>Funny, no. In 30 years, I have never landed at the wrong airport, but I can see how it could happen. Some think that flying into an airport is just quiet and easy, peaceful, how could someone land at the wrong place? Seems so calm when you’re sitting in the back. But sometimes the controllers steer you right towards the wrong place, rush you, radio chatter, traffic on your left, on your right, do you see it? We need you to keep the speed up, above glideslope, oops navaids are out, you’ll have to go visual, do you see the field yet? Cleared to land.</p>
<p>Not much of a problem going into a larger controlled airport like San Jose, so I think you’re good there. But my paranoia has served me well. Check and double check, and triple check.</p>
<p>The story made a point about San Jose!</p>
<p>“There have been six reports of pilots pointing their planes at Moffet Field military base when they were cleared to land at San Jose, according to AP’s study.”</p>
<p>The CBS San Francisco report said nothing about co-pays. However, the point was to show why independent doctors do not want Covered California patients. If the difference was only $8 per patient, I doubt that there would be so much protest from the doctors. </p>
<p>dstark, I’m not worried about Obamacare hurting my family. The kids will be fine. The changes the law made affected them positively, and I suspect they will always find a way to have decent healthcare. The only negative for them will be when so few people are working to support the gargantuan level of benefits that we will be providing for those who will not be, that their taxes and costs will skyrocket. But that’s far down the road, and I’m not worried about that right now.</p>
<p>I’m worried that the best and the brightest will no longer see medicine as a career option and that subsequently the quality of medical care and innovation will decline. </p>
<p>TatinG, the article presents an imcomplete picture. The doctors are paid in two ways and only one is looked at.</p>
<p>The copays should be looked at too.
I think $8 less per patient is s lot.</p>
<p>TatinG, what do you say to the 275,000 people that are no longer uninsured in NY? “Sorry. You are uninsured again?”</p>
<p>Busdriver11, I think you spend a lot of time worried. :)</p>
<p>Busdriver11, the world did not collapse with the tax increase in 2013. The deficit has plummeted. Thr country is not going to blow up with Obamacare.
Isnt it great that you have insurance and now others can have it too?</p>
<p>GP likes to talk about how he just wants to be covered for catastrophic events and he liked his old policy better. Well guess what? He wasnt really covered during the good old days. He was partially covered. His coverage was based on insurance companies. Insurance conpamies admit they denied coverage to applicants with pre existing conditions. Busdriver11, your kids could have been denied coverage. My kids could have been denied coverage in the past.</p>
<p>Busdriver11, You want to live in a system where your grown up kids or future grandkids get sick and cant get coverage? You are more concerned about taxes? </p>
<p>You read the recent proposal from Tom Coburn? His proposal has tax increases in it to help fund insurance. Broadening insurance costs money. </p>
<p>TatinG, i want some of the best and brightest to choose medicine as a career. </p>
<p>Insurance and coverage don’t mean much if the care one is getting is crap. Medical students are already looking at huge debt when they graduate. $200,000 to $300,000. They are looking at over $2,000 per month in payments once they graduate. For the first four or five years, the residency period, they make only $40,000 to $50,000. Yet the $2,000 plus per month has to be paid during that time. (How you live on what’s left after taxes and debt payments). By the time the doctor is making a good income, he/she is in his early 30’s. And they are still paying the debt. If somehow after doing everything right, making straight A’s in college, volunteering, doing unpaid research, getting into a medical school at all (60% of those who try don’t make it), they don’t make great salaries, then the best and the brightest will look elsewhere to apply their talents. It hasn’t happened yet, but the talk on the medical student threads (other websites) is that they are questioning whether it’s worth it.</p>
<p>I’m worried that more of the barely middle class will be pushed into poverty through less employment, more mandates, and climbing taxes. But, at least they’ll have an insurance card although perhaps not a doctor or hospital or the money to cover their deductible. So, maybe, Medicaid would be better. </p>
<p>The insurance policies are not crap. </p>
<p>I agree that going into medicine is a tough road. The debt is extreme. The lemgth of schooling is long. The costs are high. You dont make money until you are in your 30’s. The field isnt as lucrative as it was 30 years ago,
I agree people are questioning going into medicine.</p>
<p>Keeping people uninsured is not the answer.
Medical schooling costs arent due to Obsmacare. </p>
<p>Would you like to see cost reductions inMedical education? </p>
<p>What can be done for the students? Debt forgivement?</p>
<p><a href=“https://www.aamc.org/download/152968/data/debtfactcard.pdf”>https://www.aamc.org/download/152968/data/debtfactcard.pdf</a>
Medical Student Education:
Debt, Costs, and Loan Repayment Fact Card</p>
<p>dstark - I am encouraging my kids to go into mobile app development instead of medicine. :p</p>
<p>Texaspg… Lol. </p>
<p>I think there are still a lot of pluses in medicine. Helping people. Intellectually challenging. Good pay. Job security. You can travel and use your skills overseas. You can work past 65 if you want. (Maybe if you arent a surgeon). My daughter’s oncologist looks to be over 70. He looks like my grandfather used to look.
The training to become a doctor is investing in oneself.</p>
<p>I still think being a doctor is cool. </p>
<p>My son just notified us today that he isnt going to go into medicine. 
No. It wasnt because of Obamacare. :)</p>
<p>LookingForward,
Interesting link.</p>
<p>I guess none of that is a concern of mine. :)</p>
<p>Do you have a kid going to medical school?</p>
<p>No, I’m not overly worried, and I’m not worried about my kids. They have always been covered in the past, and I’m sure they will in the future. I’m glad that everyone can get coverage, and I’ve always thought there should be a certain level of health coverage that everyone should have. I still have hope that this will help strengthen the system in the end, as opposed to destroying it.</p>
<p>But this quote from actingmt is one thing I am worried about, “I’m worried that more of the barely middle class will be pushed into poverty through less employment, more mandates, and climbing taxes.”</p>
<p>The way things are going, there are only going to be two classes of people left in this country. The poor, and the rich. I am encouraging my kids to take actions to put them in the wealthy class, because I think eventually it’s going to be one or the other. When you take away incentive for people to work (having health insurance was a big incentive), people will drop out of the workforce and collect unemployment, welfare, work under the table, work less. Unless they have a high paying job. People won’t do boring or difficult jobs unless the financial incentive is great enough. I sure wouldn’t. Lower federal taxes going into the system, higher numbers of people getting benefits. You don’t work at the beginning jobs, you might not get a shot at the better ones. The opportunity to improve yourself, the motivation is gone, unless you’re in a high paying field.</p>
<p>And no, this won’t happen because the rich are getting richer. Someone getting wealthy doesn’t make someone else become poor, no matter what one chooses to pretend. I don’t want our society to go this way, with the disappearing middle class jobless and taxed into submission.</p>
<p>Busdriver11, I dont want to get into an economic discussion. If you want to believe… Believe.</p>