HealthMadeEasy.com: Our Healthcare System Is He...( PALM BEACH Fla. Oct. 8 /- The fol...),Health

PALM BEACH, Fla., Oct. 8 /PRNewswire/ -- The following statement was issued today by HealthMadeEasy.com -- Congress has made a series of bad decisions that is a major contributing factor to a very serious situation that is decreasing the availability of healthcare, reducing access and dramatically adding to healthcare costs. Americans' concerns about access to physicians have shown a significant increase according to recent polls. Access difficulty is directly related to the overall shortage of doctors in the specialty of primary care (internal medicine and family practice). Primary care physicians not only treat patient's medical problems but also serve as the "gatekeepers" for hospitalizing patients and referring them to other specialists as needed. As older doctors are retiring there are few young primary care physicians coming out of training to replace them.

Instead of choosing primary care, physicians in residency training are choosing other specialties which are procedure-oriented and are reimbursed by Medicare at a higher rate. Medical liability insurance costs have sky rocketed over the past ten years and the current congress refuses to even schedule hearings about this acute problem which is driving costs up and threatening our health care system. Many congressmen and senators of the party controlling Congress receive major contributions from the trial lawyers to their re-election campaigns, which is a powerful force that physicians can't overcome.

Because of the constant threat of lawsuits, doctors are forced to practice "defensive" medicine and order many tests and procedures than they ordinarily would not have ordered to evaluate the patient's condition. This significantly drives up the cost of healthcare and makes buying healthcare insurance much more expensive. No other nation in the world has an organized group like our trial lawyers who dramatically drive up healthcare costs. A major study by the non-profit, non-partisan Pacific
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