Yes, There Will Be A Doctor Shortage

FederalistEven if they do fix the Obamacare website they still can’t fix Obamacare. Here’s one of the many, many other problems we face if the law isn’t repealed — from Greg Scandlen at The Federalist:

The numbers don’t lie.

A few days ago Scott Gottleib and Zeke Emmanuel co-authored an op-ed in the New York Times pooh-poohing the concern about physician shortages.

So certain are they that conventional wisdom is wrong that the piece is headlined, “No, There Won’t be a Doctor Shortage.” Right, and “If you like your health plan, you can keep your health plan – period.” Somehow such bold assertions have lost a bit of their luster over the past few months.

Now, they acknowledge that an aging population and the prospect of 30 million newly insured people may make it seem like there might be a problem, and the Association of American Medical Colleges says their members aren’t able to train enough physicians to fill the need, but what do they know about physician supply? Gottleib and Emmanuel know better.

As Exhibit One, they look at Massachusetts. They write:

Take Massachusetts, where Obamacare-style reforms were implemented beginning in 2006, adding nearly 400,000 people to the insurance rolls. Appointment wait times for family physicians, internists, pediatricians, obstetricians and gynecologists, and even specialists like cardiologists, have bounced around since but have not appreciably increased overall, according to a Massachusetts Medical Society survey.

That is a wild mischaracterization of the Medical Society’s research. The press release about the 2013 survey quotes Dr. Ronald Dunlop, president of the group, as saying:

Our latest survey once again points out a critical characteristic of health care in the Commonwealth. While we’ve achieved success in securing insurance coverage for nearly all of our residents, coverage doesn’t guarantee access to care. The concern is that limited and delayed access can lead to undesirable results, as people will seek more costly care at emergency rooms, delay care too long, or not seek care at all.

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