Quote Originally Posted by Gavin Luper View Post
I'll be honest and say I'm not well-versed on how the Medicare system works here, but your post doesn't really make sense to me. Can you explain it further? Because here it's for every citizen and permanent resident. You pay upfront for a doctor's visit but Medicare will subsidise half of it back to you, the patient. But the doctor gets all their money upfront. They don't have the option of dropping patients as far as I'm aware (how is that even ethical?). So I'm really confused what your post is all about.
Basically doctors have to go through the Government to get their money back from Medicare patients. Because of the red tape and the Government's unwillingness to actually pay it out, and to make sure the doctors are not scamming them. It takes longer and longer for them to actually get paid, and at the same time they are usually getting paid less than Private Insurance. As such doctors are looking at the cost and are having to drop patients or refuse them because of all the problems.

Here is a good article on what is happening.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123993462778328019.html