Early Retirement ... For Your Doctor

If you like your insurance plan you can keep it -- unless it doesn't meet Ministry of Insurance requirements, including maternity coverage for single men. 

If you like your doctor, you can keep him or her -- unless your doctor decides to cut his losses and retire.

I work for a large corporation that self-insures.  Because we are a technology company, we have a lot of younger, healthy employees.  To keep insuring us will cost the company an extra $400,000 this year.  Next year?  Probably more.  At some point something will give. 

My wife has Type I diabetes and, after nearly forty years, some of the consequent complications, such as retinopathy.  She has been fortunate in that she has had very talented eye surgeons that have saved and actually improved her vision.  Her current eye doctor is not only exceptionally skilled but dedicated and caring.  In his late fifties, his plan was to continue practicing until around age 70. 

He may not be able to do that.  According to his conversation with my wife on Friday, a failure on his part to follow the new government rules could result in a $100,000 fine for his first offense.  A second offense would land him in jail.  He no longer accepts Medicaid patients -- not because he is unwilling to provide care at a lower cost but because Medicaid exposes his practice to too much regulatory risk.  His specialty is retinopathy and macular pathologies.  Thus the majority of his patients are older, many on Medicare. 

The government thinks it can do a better job of providing medical care than doctors.  If government-run medical systems are so wonderful, tell me how many American doctors flee to Canada, England or France to practice?  I think the Canadian and French models are all right in some respects.  Canada has around 35 million residents, France about 65 million.  France is not all that far from the same kind of financial crisis that threatens the southern tier of the EU.  But in any case, what works for a smaller and less diverse population may not work nearly so well for the U.S. 

I hope all the Democrat voters out there will be happy when they need a translator to tell the doctor they are having a heart attack.

The federal government has already shown its incompetence in attempting to set up the system.  Implementation will be even more disastrous. 

Let people choose what risks they want to take.  Then make them accept the consequences.  That's the way it should work.