The Doctor is Not In Just

Just won't be there

71% of doctors were doubtful that the government would be able to cover the 47 million uninsured Americans with better care at lower costs, which ObamaCare supporters have promised.

During the ObamaCare debate last summer, Investors Business Daily took a survey of practicing physicians to see whether they were contemplating “going Galt” if ObamaCare passed. Their survey showed that 44% of all doctors would consider retiring or pursuing other lines of work in the new system, but critics widely panned the survey as biased and accused IBD of pushing its agenda through rigged polls. Today, IBD claims vindication in a new survey conducted by Merritt Hawkins for the Physicians Foundation — which largely corroborates the earlier poll:

Now a Merritt Hawkins survey of 2,379 doctors for the Physicians Foundation completed in August has vindicated our poll. It found that 40% of doctors said they would “retire, seek a nonclinical job in health care, or seek a job or business unrelated to health care” over the next three years as the overhaul is phased in.

Of those who said they planned to retire, 28% are 55 or younger and nearly half (49%) are 60 or younger.

A larger portion (74%) said they plan to make “one or more significant changes in their practices in the next one to three years, a time when many provisions of health reform will be phased in.”

In addition to retirement, and finding nonclinical jobs elsewhere, those changes include working part time, closing practices to new patients, employment at a hospital, cutting back on the number of patients and switching to a cash or concierge practice.
H/T Hotair