The Boston Globe reports docs' disgraceful lobbying in Boston.  It's no wonder the Bay State’s health costs continue to rise uncontrollably. That the doctors invest in lobbying state government to protect their turf and limit patients’ choices, instead of figuring out why they are unable to satisfy our primary care needs, is appalling.

As in other jurisdictions, Mass. docs are scaring legislators and regulators with visions of convenient clinics as thirdy-worldy holding tanks of tuberculosis, malaria, and typhoid, where anyone who goes to the pharmacy to buy some dental floss will turn into some kind of zombie through exposure to the dredges of humanity.

OK, I'm exaggerating, but as ridiculous as the physicians' allegations of bad hygeine are, the others are worse.  For example, they want the state to demand that the clinics answer phone calls after hours; and that patients should not be allowed to visit a clinic more than a specified number of times.  But the reason people go to convenient clinics is because primary care docs tend to keep bankers' hours.  There's no indication that the physicians are committing to man the phones 24/7, or make themselves more available!

Massachusetts recently imposed an expensive and unwieldy “universal” health care reform at the behest of hospitals complaining about uncompensated overuse of emergency rooms. At least the docs could let a woman whose granddaughter has an ear infection in the middle of the night use a less expensive and more convenient option than the ER.

As I've noted before, the shortage of primary care practitioners is not caused by a surplus of convenient clinics, but by a system of 3rd party payment that will never serve their interests.  That's what they should lobby to change.