SACRAMENTO, Calif. , July 25, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- A new brief released today by the Center for Medical Economics and Innovation at the nonpartisan Pacific Research Institute finds that artificially low reimbursement rates used by Medicare to contain costs are threatening patient care, and reform is needed to prevent future doctor shortages. Click to download the brief "Price controls used by government-run health care systems globally to contain costs lead to delays, lower quality, and worse health outcomes," said Dr.
Wayne Winegarden , director of PRI's Center for Medical Economics and Innovation. "U.S.
patients could also face doctor shortages unless Medicare's low doctor reimbursement rates are reformed and proposals for single-payer health care are rejected." Doctor shortages are a common experience in government-run health care systems globally. According to a 2022 Our Care survey, 22% of Canadians do not have a family doctor or nurse practitioner, while the average number of doctors per 1,000 people in the United Kingdom was just 2.
9 per 1,000 people, compared to 3.7 per 1,000 people in OECD European Union nations. A growing driver of doctor shortages in the U.
S. and around the world is inadequate doctor compensation, which arises because government-run health care systems such as Medicare impose increasingly uneconomical price controls on doctors to control rising costs. The problem would grow worse in the U.
S. if a single-payer health care system is enacted. Medicare.