Physician suicide rates climb since PPACA passed.

• Position: Your Life - Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

"Chaos and disruptions in medical care have had one tragic and destructive effect that no one is addressing: the deaths of more than 2,000 physicians by suicide since ObamaCare was passed by means of strong-arming and bribery," declares Elizabeth Lee Vliet, a preventive and climacteric medicine specialist with practices in Tucson, Ariz., and Dallas, Texas. She also is CEO of International Health Strategies, SpA, a global medical consulting company based in Santiago, Chile.

Physicians in general have a higher rate of suicide than other professional groups and the general public. Women physicians' suicide rates are reported to be up to 400% higher than women in other professions. Male physicians' rates are 50% to 70% higher, Vliet indicates.

"Why are more physicians seeing suicide as their only option? The rising rate since the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was passed points to the added regulatory and financial pressures from ObamaCare as major factors." These include:

* Need to see more patients per hour to make ends meet.

* Lower payments, longer delays in being paid, and declining patient visits due to higher co-pays and deductibles.

* Financial stress--a known trigger for suicide--intensified by a 40% to 50% decline in practice revenues as overhead costs go up, forcing many primary care physicians to dose up their practices.

* Increasing administrative and paperwork burden, which takes time away from patient care, without the satisfaction of helping patients.

* More generalized "one-size-fits-all" protocols demanded by insurance and government "guidelines."

* More forms, reports, and regulations that no one understands, but with huge financial penalties and even prison time for making mistakes.

* Demonization of "greedy doctors" by insurance companies, government, and media.

Doctors, Vliet explains, always have been at higher risk of suicide than other professions for several reasons:

* Pressures of responsibility for patients' lives.

* Fear of making mistakes that might cost a life or trigger a malpractice suit that could result in losing one's medical license and livelihood.

* Long hours and time away from families on nights and weekends.

* High rates of unrecognized or untreated depression, alcohol or substance abuse, and divorce due to all of the above.

Vliet adds: "Physicans are human, too, and have feelings. I think there are other critically overlooked factors in the rising suicide rates since 2010." These...