You might expect to hear more griping about ♡bamaCare!!! from actual doctors, since the Totally Settled Law of the Land™ is forcing their patients elsewhere, closing up private practicing, and empowering bureaucrats over medical professionals.
Doctors Gerard Gianoli and Joel Strom explain this strange reticence:
The primary reason is fear. Doctors are afraid of their new bosses — bureaucrats and their corporate employers whom the ACA empowered.
Thanks to the ACA, many physicians who have practiced as small employers have been forced to leave private practice to become corporate employees (a number that now represents more than 50% of all physicians). For physicians in this position, public advocacy against the ACA could be in violation of employment contracts or could be a source for dismissal.
Most doctors’ contracts also include a two-year noncompete clause that essentially requires the doctor to move out of town once he or she leaves a specific job. So, running afoul of your employer by criticizing the ACA could result in not just losing your job but also forcing you to leave your hometown.
And that’s not all. Many doctors are also afraid of losing insurance contracts. The vast majority of doctors who are still private-practice owners are dependent on a handful of large insurance contracts for revenue. Speaking out against insurance companies — which were complicit in the ACA’s passage and are some of its primary beneficiaries — can result in cancellation of those contracts.
One insurance contract that represents 20% of gross revenue for a physician can result in a 40% decrease in take-home pay. When one of your customers controls that much of your income, you too would be reluctant to be openly critical of them and the federal law that empowers them.
That Means It’s Working™
(H/T, D Jason Fleming.)
Join the conversation as a VIP Member