Today’s Wall St Journal has an editorial entitled, “The Failure of RomneyCare”. It contains some fascinating statistics about , the average physician availability in the Bay State. In fact, the Massachusetts Medical Society refers to the situation as a “critical shortage” of primary care physicians. “56% of Massachusetts internal medicine physicians no longer are accepting new patients according to a 2009 physician work-force study conducted by the Massachusetts Medical Society. For new patients who do get an appointment with a primary-care doctor, the waiting time is 44 days… ”
Dr. Sandra Schneider, the vice president of the American College of Emergency Physicians, told the Boston Globe last April, “Just because you have insurance doesn’t mean there’s a physician who can see you.”
Once again the issues are pretty clear. Our ongoing medical issues are centered on access and cost containment.