Health care reform -- practitioners

You’ve heard of supply and demand, right? The basic idea is that for a thing, there is some amount where the demand for that thing equals the supply. Having too much of something means you have to discount it to get more people interested in it. Having too little of something means you have to charge a premium because more people want it than you have enough to sell to them.

This philosophy also applies to services. Say, doctors, for instance. A person is willing to wait a certain amount of time to see their doc. If their current doctor is booked too far out, they’ll go see another doctor. If the overall wait time is too long, the price doctors charge will increase to decrease the number of people making appointments. As the fee increases, non-doctors will decide to become doctors because the fee for service is so appealing. As more doctors enter the marketplace, the wait time to see a doc drops incenting doctors to reduce their fees to incent people to come see them. Follow?

Let me ask you a question. What would happen if we add 40 million patients without adding any doctors, nurses, pharmacists, technicians, or other health care professionals? If one-percent of them decided to go get a check-up, 400,000 additional patients would be trying to get in to see a doctor. Two things can happen. One, the price to see a doc goes up. Two, the time to see a doc will increase.

Let me ask you another question. How can President Obama promise health care for everyone in the United States without adversely effecting service? How can the President promise to increase the number of patients and limit the price health care professionals will be reimbursed and not expect wait times to increase?

One of the answers is to affordable health care for every American is more doctors, nurses and other health care professionals. Why aren’t we building more medical schools? Why aren’t we committing more finances to help medical students pay for medical school? Why aren’t we helping health care professionals repay their student loans? If you want health care costs to fall, increase the number of health care professionals.

One what?

One trillion seconds ago, the earliest known cave paintings were being made.

One trillion heart beats is enough for 384 lifetimes.

One trillion watts are released in a lightning strike in manner of microseconds.

One trillion dollar bills stacked on each other would reach 1/3 of the way to the Moon.

One trillion miles is almost 40,225,700 times the distance around Earth and almost 42,200 times the distance from Earth to Venus. It’s nearly 4,000 times the distance from Earth to Mars at its most distant orbit.

One trillion is the US national deficit over the last nine months. That means we bought more than we sold. It’s 13% of our GDP, more than twice the previous record. Put another way, that’s about $3,300 for every America.

It’s past time to reprioritize our spending and cut back to core services.