Docs Flee Jersey (Wouldn't You?)
Via the Drudge Report, we learn that medical docs are fleeing Blue State Jersey faster than "Old Blue Eyes" skedaddled out of Hoboken.
This from MY9NJ.com:
According to Deborah Briggs, the President and CEO of the Council of Teaching Hospitals, New Jersey loses nearly 70% of the doctors it educates to other states. This is well below the national average of a 48% retention rate.
Pray tell, why on earth would any doc want to pull up stakes and leave the bucolic Garden State? Here's why, again according MY9NJ.com:
The top five reasons for physicians leaving are:
- Better salary offered outside of New Jersey
- Cost of living in New Jersey
- Better job/practice opportunities in desired locations outside of New Jersey
- Taxes in New Jersey
- Affordable Housing
Oh, and add malpractice insurance costs, which docs say make starting a practice in Jersey a deal-buster.
So, that's six reasons. I'm sure Letterman could come up with four more. Funny to us, but not so funny to Jersey residents who need quality health care.
Doubtless, Newark's MIA mayor and future senator Cory Booker (perish the thought), Governor Chris "Lumpy" Christie, and President-for-Life Obama will put their considerable heads together and come up with a mandate to compel docs to stay in Jersey -- justified under ObamaCare but challenged in court, only to have Chief Justice Roberts write the deciding opinion favoring the mandate, which will be shorthanded "The Berlin Wall," or "It worked in East Germany for awhile."
Well, Jersey's doc drain is a gain for the rest of us -- for a while, anyway.