Artificial doctor shortage + Cutting off nose to spite face = Georgia

[The Illusive Man]

Hundreds of health care workers in Georgia are losing their licenses to practice because of a problem created by a new immigration law in the state. The law requires everyone — no matter where they were born — to prove their citizenship or legal residency to renew their professional licenses. With too few state workers to process the extra paperwork, licenses for doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other health professionals are expiring. Lisa Durden with the secretary of state's office says renewing a license used to be a straightforward process and most applications whizzed through. Now, they crawl. Enactment of the law coincided with budget cuts that reduced the office staff by 40 percent.

Ladies and gentlemen we have reached Derpcon 2, it is now within the realm of possibility that the stupid is crippling the functions of a state. But hey, this is smaller government right?

Quick question, how does a private company verify documentation such as a birth certificate?

Even D.A. King, an outspoken activist and critic of illegal immigration who helped write the law, agrees. King says the law protects Georgia jobs, but even he believes some parts of the legislation need fixing. A bill that addressed some of the law's shortcomings died in the last legislative session.
"I am not only outraged, but sincerely disappointed and puzzled that our repair legislation was not allowed a vote," King says.

Meanwhile in reality…

State officials say the new document requirements haven't uncovered any undocumented immigrants.

Hughes estimates about 1,300 doctors and other medical practitioners have lost their legal ability to work. Some didn't submit the required paperwork. Others are stuck in the backlog of applications that haven't been processed yet.

[Captain Jack Harkness]

Inb4 right wing somehow spins this into a direct consequence of Obamacare.

[Fpqxz]

So the State of Georgia created a new regulatory hurdle for health care workers, and then didn't commit the appropriate budget and personnel to actually implement and enforce the law?

Isn't that the sort of problem that Republicans typically complain about?  You know, red tape and all that?

Seriously though, this sounds like the kind of thing that will eventually become a case study for Public Administration school students to read.

[kefkaownsall]

What they call red tape is under staffing.  Really hiring a more few pencil pushers saves you a ton of paperwork

[wrongfrog]

Well goddamn, that's just dandy considering I live in Georgia. I hope these doctors aren't the ones our Medicaid will pay for.

[SpaceProg]

I heard rumblings about this before Obama was re-elected.  Guess they're finally going through with it.  GA (I guess everywhere, really) has a large amount of doctors and other medical professionals who immigrated from India, Pakistan, and other areas of Asia and the Middle East.  It's going to slow things down for them something fierce.
I hope they decide on a better way when the bottleneck this is causing really becomes a problem.

[Material Defender]

Well, I hope Alton Brown doesn't need a doctor.

[Paradox]

Don't blame me, I didn't vote for the bastards.

[ironbite]

Amazing truly amazing.  And all this does is hurt themselves.

Ironbite-I am actually witnessing petty behavior on a state scale.

[Witchyjoshy]

Problem is, they're also hurting anyone in the area who doesn't subscribe to their fuckwitted politics.

[SpaceProg]

Yay.  My Aunt's psychiatrist is from India, as well as her oncologist... yeah.