Doctors Think Differently About the New Health Care Law

March 23, 2010— -- Dr. Lee Green, a primary care physician in Michigan, was seeing patients in his office late today and telling us why he thinks having millions more people covered by health insurance will help frontline doctors like him prevent more serious illnesses down the line.

"There are a lot of folks out there who will be coming in more regularly, they'll be able to be treated and I'll be able to provide care for them early," he said.

Meanwhile, in Atlanta, Dr. Wendy Wright, an intensive care neurologist, was checking in on a patient who just had brain surgery, and telling us that with so much money about to be poured into primary care, she's worried resources will be taken away from the kind of high-priced, super-specialized care she provides.

"People will die," she said. "And these are the people that I have to face every day and I'm going to have to be the one to tell their families 'I'm sorry I'm not allowed to do that for your child, I'm not the one who can save your husband.'"

With the new bill, Wright said, "the government ... will be in charge of the purse strings, and will therefore get to decide what procedures will be reimbursed."

Yet, she said, "No legal protection is provided to physicians who may not be allowed from an administrative standpoint to not provide any and all measure of care due to cost-containment measures. This is obviously unsustainable."

But Green disagreed.

"I think that's very unlikely," he said. "I don't think people who need care will not get it."

But, he said, "The upside is the downside: [The bill] will -- once phased in, not immediately -- increase visits by the unemployed, part-time workers, and people employed in jobs with no health benefits. That's good, because my patients who need care will be more likely to get it.

"We will, for example, see fewer cases of heart failure because we'll get people's high blood pressure taken care of before it causes heart failure," he said.