The Doctor Can’t See You Now, Can You Come Back Next Year? « NewsReal Blog

The Doctor Can’t See You Now, Can You Come Back Next Year? « NewsReal Blog: "In the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi’s version of the bill designed to implement President Barack Obama’s overhaul of the American health care system (and in the process provide coverage to 30 million currently uninsured Americans and possibly illegal aliens) passed, but immediately came under fire for being too expensive. Pundits predicted that a similar version would not pass in the Senate.

Harry Reid’s Senate version of the bill had Reid’s progressives looking at what could be cut from the House’s plan in order to make the bill more financially palatable. Since Senate Democrats seem to enjoy spending other people’s money just as much as House Democrats do, they naturally didn’t find too much. One of the things they did ultimately select, however, was the elimination of those subsidies that had been allotted to financially assisting medical residents in becoming primary care physicians and general surgeons.

By eliminating these subsidies and placing more of the financial burden on future physicians, Reid and his minions reasoned that they could keep their version of the plan under a trillion dollars, thereby making its passage in the Senate more likely. The Senate version passed, and Reid and his progressives gloated before the state-run media’s TV cameras.

Both versions had one serious flaw in common: they both failed to address what a Fox News report has identified as the premier health care challenge currently facing the nation: the severe shortage of physicians."