Health Care Reform

So I have tried to familiarize myself with the new health care reform but there are still so many questions and worries that I have. As a nurse my one fear is that any time the government is in charge of something it is highly regulated. The reform says that there will opportunities for nurses but are any of the people designing this bill nurses or doctors?

I am a young nurse and this reform to me feels both needed but scary. I am sure to even politicians the change is somewhat scary. At my hospital we have went without pay raises for almost two years now because our hospital is not doing financially well. We do however provide some of the best care and have never turned a patient away regardless of their insurance status. I must say though when I have a patient it is always communicated that they are self pay. I feel that even though they are self pay that they are treated with the same respect and receive the same care as you or I would.

With government regulation on health care my main concern is time spent at the bedside. Generally when a government oversees a particular area this means more paperwork and documentation. As a nurse I am already spending a lot of time documenting so I am afraid that we will be giving up quality of care. With such high regulations will this take away from time at the bedside? At our hospital we have strived to make small changes to provide more time for our patients.

The reason I say that this reform is needed is because recently we were told that eventually physicians may choose to not accept medicare or medicaid patients because they are receiving very little in reimbursement. In this area these patients are our primary group which has put our hospital in a very hard spot. We want to provide the best care for every patient but we must have the financial status to do so.

When you go into hospitals and you see new tv's, remodeled units, and lots up upgrades it raises the question how can they possibly be struggling? The way I understand it is hospitals have seperate funds for improvements on the facilities and this money CAN NOT be used on wages. I understand that hospitals have to compete with newer and bigger facilities but I also believe that these funds should be used for wages in hard times. I would choose to have one less tv for great care but I suppose there are people out there that would choose differently.