Medicare Payment Advisory Commission reported last week that 28% of Medicare beneficiaries had trouble finding a new primary care physician in 2008, up from 24% the year before. Some other stats they noted:

• The problem is even worse with Medicaid. A 2005 Community Tracking Physician survey showed that only 50% of physicians accept this insurance.
  
  
• HMOs are problematic as well. Recent surveys from New York show a 10% yearly dropout rate [among providers] from the state's largest HMO, the Health Insurance Plan of New York (HIP), and a 14% drop-out rate from Health Net of New York, another big HMO.
  

This data reveals that the Medicare access problem -- before the boomer hit -- is serious already. We need to bolster primary care, but also to fix the entire Medicare mess.

*** Image from Flickr (Ben Zvan). ***

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