Where do you think the future of medicine is headed?

Two possible outcomes:

Worst Case: We move towards a single-payer system. At first, this will seem like a good idea, but it will cause utter chaos. Doctors start to refuse medicaid/medicare because it's financially burdening, then that becomes illegal. The doctors who are top-notch and smart enough to do other shit will leave the profession for financially viable lifestyles, creating a scarcity of physicians even more than we already have. Eventually, things setting down. Ten years after it's put into effect, we start to have quality and moral issues like the UK. With our substantially bigger population, single payer is unsustainable. Eventually, doctors start to practice in black market. Rich people have perfect healthcare, and everyone who isn't in the top 10% of the population has shit care.

Best Case: The govt gets tf out of insurance business and cuts regulations. Medicaid and Medicare go out the window and are replaced by a single program: catastrophic/pre-existing conditions care paid for by the govt. Then the laws that prohibit people from buying insurance across state lines go away, insurance companies compete, prices drop, and available plans diversify. Also, funding that is retracted from Medicaid/medicare goes to NIH, which funds more residency programs--residency availability has not increased even though the number of med schools has increased.

/r/premed Thread