Puerto Rico’s Healthcare Crisis: Why Obamacare MUST BE KILLED

Obamacare is a failure. Only the sickest people in America care about it, and they represent a sliver of those impacted.

The majority of people in America who work have been impacted negatively by Obamacare. High deductibles and co-pays, along with skyrocketing costs would have most people screaming like banshee monkeys.

And most leftists would be against this travesty, if they weren’t so invested in Obama.

Further, if you want to know how bad the American healthcare system can get under the Affordable Care Act, look at Puerto Rico.

There is a mass exodus of medical students and doctors from Puerto Rico to the United States underway.

Once departures accelerated in 2009, it produced a shortage of trained physicians in Puerto Rico that continues to worsen with each passing year. Between 2009 and 2014, the total number of doctors on the island decreased by nearly 2,400.

In 2014 alone, 365 doctors left. And only 278 medical residents completed their training. That left a shortfall of 87 doctors in a country that cannot afford such shortages. Word must have spread about better working conditions stateside. Because in 2015, 500 doctors left Puerto Rico, with only 293 new physicians left to fill their void.

Why is this happening? Because of the extreme uncertainty regarding Puerto Rico’s current economy and healthcare system.

Reason #1 – Residency training is hard to come by on the island.

The March Residency Match programs among Puerto Rico’s four hospitals placed 50% of its medical students into mainland positions. The doctor shortage means, there aren’t a lot of experienced medical professionals to provide incoming residents with the hands-on medical training they require to complete their degrees.

However, despite Obama’s promises, customer choice re healthcare options have dwindled to almost nothing in most states as well.

That choice deprivation will only spread with the fiscal burden that the AFA placed on the American taxpayer.

Reason #2 – Doctors have poor job prospects on the island.

Another reason Puerto Rico’s doctors are leaving en masse is the lack of good-paying jobs.

Puerto Rico’s growing and critically urgent healthcare needs do not compel medical school graduates to stay on the island. More and more of them find better pay, training, and benefits on the mainland.

Doctors working on the mainland earn two to three times more than their Puerto Rican colleagues. For example, general practitioners in America earn, on average, $82,710, as of May 2016. By contrast, average incomes for the same doctors working in the state with the lowest earnings in the union (Oklahoma), make $155,420.

Don’t worry. Because of Obamacare, being a doctor will be a job only a Puerto Rican will want to do.

Reason # 3 – Puerto Rico is in a severe debt crisis that affects their healthcare system.

Medicaid managed care programs insure almost half of all Puerto Rican residents (4 in 10). Yet, payments for doctors and hospitals are one-third less than payment averages on the mainland, where payment lag prevailing charges.

Compounding this disparity is the islands’ $70 billion debt crisis, which is so bad, the U.S. Congress had to establish an oversight board to save Puerto Rico’s economy. But if $70 billion sounds like a lot, then try almost $20 trillion.

Try as it might, the island government isn’t doing enough to incentivize doctors to stay. And the same is true with Obamacare.

As Investor’s Business Daily reported back in 2015,

A new report from Avalere Health finds that enrollees in Obamacare plans have access to 34% fewer providers than those who buy a commercial plan outside the exchange. On average, it found, Obamacare enrollees had 32% fewer primary care doctors and 24% fewer hospitals from which to choose.

Governor Ricardo Roselló is trying an incentive.

He approved a new law that lowers doctor’s income taxes to 4%. But there is a significant catch.

The doctors get this incentive only if they give their services away for free or at a deep discount to Medicaid patients in excess of 180 hours. That’s more than one month of work at little to no pay.

Obamacare is a scam on the order of climate change. The citizens get nothing, except for a handful of very ill. It’s time we scuttle the ship completely.