After my girlfriend, a diabetic, spent six days in the hospital and didn't see an endocrinologist for the first four days, I knew that access to specialists is not easy. And thanks to our president, who will go out of his way to make things easier for business and rich people and harder for the middle class on down, access to specialists is about to get even harder.

"The new rule gives hospitals greater discretion in arranging such coverage. A hospital can legally exempt senior members of the medical staff from on-call duty, it says. Moreover, the new rule says federal law does not require all hospitals to have doctors on call 24 hours a day seven days a week.

In addition, the rule says, doctors can have simultaneous on-call duties at two or more hospitals and can schedule elective surgery or other medical procedures when they are on call."