The Doctor will not see you, now.

Since we’ve been told to expect a drop in services under universal health care (by a supporter of universal health care, no less), we are seeing concrete examples of this very phenomena in the real world.

Many people, just as they become eligible for Medicare, discover that the insurance rug has been pulled out from under them. Some doctors — often internists but also gastroenterologists, gynecologists, psychiatrists and other specialists — are no longer accepting Medicare, either because they have opted out of the insurance system or they are not accepting new patients with Medicare coverage. The doctors’ reasons: reimbursement rates are too low and paperwork too much of a hassle.

(italics, ours)

Again, there should be no shock and awe here. Medicare is merely universal health care on a smaller scale. When rates are pre-negotiated by third parties as they are with Medicare and will be with universal health care, they will not reflect the market rate for the services and treatment provided by the doctor. If a doctor is not getting what he feels is fair market value for his services, what is the incentive for that doctor to provide the same any longer?

There isn’t. As such, he/she will no longer provide those services.

But you all want it. You all are begging for “free” health care. You all live with the delusion that universal health care will a) be cheap and b) be comprehensive. It doesn’t work that way and you know it but somehow merely wishing really, really hard for the immutable laws of economics to be reversed is good enough for the majority of people in this country.