You may feel a little sting

I know better than to discuss certain things on my blog. Religion and politics are strictly off-limits in peaceful conversation. HOWEVER, I’m making an exception because I truly believe this information needs to be shared.

Given my recent surgeries, I’ve had a lot of contact with the medical community in the past few months. Of interest today is the information I received from a very reliable source (a well-educated doctor who also happens to be a Democrat) that there will be no two-tier health system under Obamacare.

If you’re not familiar with two-tier healthcare, I’ll give it to you in a nutshell. In England, Australia, and a few other countries with socialized medicine, doctors are either public or private. Public doctors are paid by the government (through the tax dollars which come from citizens) and treat any eligible patient who comes to them. Private doctors are paid directly by the patient. In these systems, the wait to see a public doctor is notoriously long, and the care is often not of the same caliber as that received in private care.

In two-tier systems, those who can afford to will usually use private medicine, and those who cannot must rely on public healthcare.

That just doesn’t seem fair, does it?

Obamacare comes with a solution already in place.

In order to prevent two-tier healthcare under Obamacare, no state will be permitted to issue a license to a doctor unless that doctor agrees to accept Medicare or Medicaid.

It seems like a really good rule on the surface. Fair to everyone, everyone gets the same treatment, all doctors get paid alike.


Except it’s not quite that simple.

According to the doctors I asked, if they were forced to run their practices on Medicare and Medicaid rates, they could not afford to keep their doors open. They actually lose money at Medicare rates, struggle to break even on insurance-agreement rates, and rely on private-pay patients to make a profit.

More and more doctors are preparing to retire when Obamacare goes into full force in 2014. It seems all fuzzy and far-away until you consider that the healthcare provider you rely may be one of them, and Obamacare is just ten short months and a few days away.

Please don’t take my word for any of this. I encourage you to ask your doctors how Obamacare will effect their practices.

Of course, I have to tie this into a Life Coaching blog somehow. As my own Life Purpose is Facilitating Awareness – Body, Mind, Spirit, and Emotions, I’d like to believe I’ve facilitated awareness by providing this information, but providing information is not really the purpose of coaching.

Creative thinking, informed choices, responsibility (the ability to respond), creating a life we are excited to move forward into, taking action… these are all the territory of Life Coaching.

What are your creative thoughts regarding the future of healthcare and Obamacare?

How will you use this information to help you make informed choices?

How can you constructively respond to this situation?

What can you create in your life that would make this exciting for you to move forward into?

What is one action are willing to take today to make this work for you?
How you choose to respond is the first step in moving from sting to solution.

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