I 5000% agree with expanding coverage and benefits/services for pregnant women. But this care must be adequately compensated. OB GYN’s work an incredible number of hours including brutal call shifts. They assume the care and liability for two patients at once. They graduate now with 300k of debit and 10,000’s of hours of training. To suggest that they be compensated at essentially minimum wage is insulting. Not just to the physicians but women. Women and children in the US are undervalued. Care in male dominated fields are compensated at a much higher rate. The additional services so desperately needed for women must be compensated. Not the same low amount, amounting to lowering income to doctors. This will cause practices to close as it can already cost more to see a patient than is compensated. It will cause more hospital labor and deliveries to close. They are already teetering on the edge. ACOG and the AMA have failed to work hard for fair compensation for this field. As a result many OB’s have seen their income decline year after year. This also snowballs into more early retirement from the field, less trainees into the field and no one left to provide the complex care that is desperately needed.
I 5000% agree with expanding coverage and benefits/services for pregnant women. But this care must be adequately compensated. OB GYN’s work an incredible number of hours including brutal call shifts. They assume the care and liability for two patients at once. They graduate now with 300k of debit and 10,000’s of hours of training. To suggest that they be compensated at essentially minimum wage is insulting. Not just to the physicians but women. Women and children in the US are undervalued. Care in male dominated fields are compensated at a much higher rate. The additional services so desperately needed for women must be compensated. Not the same low amount, amounting to lowering income to doctors. This will cause practices to close as it can already cost more to see a patient than is compensated. It will cause more hospital labor and deliveries to close. They are already teetering on the edge. ACOG and the AMA have failed to work hard for fair compensation for this field. As a result many OB’s have seen their income decline year after year. This also snowballs into more early retirement from the field, less trainees into the field and no one left to provide the complex care that is desperately needed.