The latest conservative outrage: Too many people are getting health care

The nerve of these people, I tell ya. I mean, can you imagine the audacity of millions of previously uninsured Americans now become eligible for health care thanks to the Affordable Care Act — and actually following through?! Don’t they have any consideration for how their actions might affect the rest of us who already had health care? Sheesh.

In the latest example of their outrage, courtesy Hot Air, conservatives are citing a USA Today article about how doctors are having a hard time balancing profits and patients. To conservatives, this is just another negative consequence of ObamaCare. Our dear conservative friend Cluster called it just another example of the “unintended consequences of big government.”

What’s the problem again? Oh yeah, millions of Americans are getting access to health care that didn’t have it before. You might ask, this is really a problem? Well, apparently it is if you’re a conservative who already had health care, and therefore couldn’t care less whether other people have it.

Yes, this is really the issue with these people. Conservatives are afraid that their own doctors will spend less time with them because they will have to spend time with those undeserving ObamaCare patients. An outrage, indeed.

But let’s cut the sarcasm for a moment. Honestly, what kind of morality sees your friends, relatives and neighbors gaining access to health care as an inherently bad thing? These are Americans who were previously shut out of the health care system because they are sick (and therefore unprofitable), were once sick (and therefore potentially unprofitable), or simply don’t have the money to afford health care (and therefore obviously unprofitable).

There’s a telling paragraph in that USA Today article:

Physicians don’t like to be rushed either, but for primary care physicians, time is, quite literally, money. Unlike specialists, they don’t do procedures like biopsies or colonoscopies, which generate revenue. Instead, most are still paid per visit, with only minor adjustments for those that go longer.

Ah, there’s the real issue. The more patients these doctors see, the more money they make. And we’re surprised that medical offices are telling their doctors to shorten up the visits so that can see more patients and make more money? It’s just capitalism at work. Conservatives should rejoice.

And speaking of capitalism, it has always been true, and is still true, that the more money you have, the better health care you can get. I mean, if you have enough money, you can hire your own personal physician. So what’s the problem, conservatives? If you don’t like sharing your doctors, the way to fix that is to spend more of your money. Everyone wins. The doctor wins, you win, and the economy wins. Pretty simple, really.

Of course, the converse to having lots of money is being poor. And incredibly, the poorest 40% of American women — almost half of all American women — are seeing their life expectancies actually decline compared to the generation before them. What a country — the one with the greatest health care system in the world. Right? Right?!