substitute the word "lawyers" for "doctors" and then you will get my attention.
I wish it were as simple as you suggest, but its not. At present we do not have "unregulated" medicine.
One problem is that people do not want to take personal responsibility for their health care, " I have a Right" to free health care and furthermore I don't have to do anything to contribute to my health and "they" should help me if I smoke, drink or eat myself into illness." Another problem is that ---Wake up!---this is not 1952: we now have more medications, proceedures and medical advances than we did 40 or 50 years ago. Everyone wants The Best, all the time, right now and "Someone should pay for it!"
While there are many doctors who may be in it "for the money" there are also many doctors who don't like this system anymore than we do. Expensive treatments and equipment and specialized care costs money. Having to run endless "back up" tests and visits to protect themselves is the fault of trial lawyers.
Kerry panders to the "give it all to me for free and now!" thinking.
remember, socialized health care.....
All the efficiency of the postal service.
All the compassion of the IRS.
You're really Hillary Clinton, aren't you?
TROLL ALERT!
ALERT: Strong words follow.
Jim,
I am a physician, and I was outraged that you would proudly profess your ignorance in this manner. I had planned on writing a scathing rebuttal to your post, but I figured it was a lost cause. So just let me say, "B**w me!"
Welcome to Free Republic.
Alas, you visit here is certain to be short.
1. Alas, philosophically you are correct. It has been said that both physicians and prostitutes do for money that which they should do for love.
2. Factually, the "AMA" has no control over the number of MDs graduated in the US. If anyone does, and they really in fact don't, it is the JCAH (Joint Committee on Accredation of Hospitals) and the various private, independent medical certification (NME) and speciality certification boards (ACP). The major determinant of how many doctors you can graduate in a given year is how many well-staffed medical schools you have. It takes a large number of people a lot of time to turn a polliwog into someone who knows the diffference between a Shift to the Left and Subclavian Steal.
With many doctors paying $150,000+ PER YEAR for malpractice insurance, they aren't.
Opinions and vanities should be marked as such and posted in General/Chat or Bloggers/Personal.
LOL!
"I think the health care industry absolutely MUST BE SEEN as a critical industry where government regulation of pricing, at the very least, is demanded."
Who's your mentor, Mao, Castro, Il Sung, Stalin, Kerry, Edwards?
" idealists who want to help their fellow man are discouraged"
LOL! Which one, Mao, Castro, Stalin, Il Sung, Kerry, Edwards?
" the current situation fester with virtually no government regulation is getting us nowhere fast."
No regs? LOL!
" Just get rid of the bad apples to begin with by taking the profit out of the game."
It's Mao isn't it?
And fish should have handles to make it easier to pull them out of the water... ;)
They tried it your way once. It was called the Soviet Union. They ended up having to shoot a lot of doctors.
Your ignorance of the mechanisms and economics of health care delivery is astounding. Apparently your idea of a "free market" is literal - "Give it to me free".
When I got married in 1977 it cost $400 for the delivery room (w/o insurance) & maternity coverage on your insurance was an option you selected. Shortly after, the State of Florida made maternity coverage mandatory for everyone on group policies. Guess what?? People who didn't want it had to pay for it anyway. AND delivery room charges quadrupled within 3 years.
There is absolutely NO market force influence in the health care delivery system. And this mess is the result.
There is no single solution or magic bullet for a mess that has taken 40 years to evolve.
Is that too nuanced for your liberal thought processes?
Well, Jim, it's nice that you can dictate to doctors that they should not be in it for money. I wonder how you would like it if your boss told you that you would have to pay a $100,000 insurance premium before you could START your job and make money?
Your ignorance is astounding.
Doctors should be doctors for whatever reason they choose to be doctors. I don't care why someone is a doctor, just so long as I get quality care. Health care is expensive because of government, not inspite of government.
Try basing your opinion of the health care industry in economics rather than emotion...JFK
I freely admit that I thought I'd never see such a classist, crypto-communist statement here on FR.
To call you a troll would be demeaning to honest, hard-working trolls everywhere.
Pinko.
There is a big difference between being honest and honestly trying to strengthen the economy at every turn, while greatly increasing health care spending for seniors to the tune of billions of dollars, and being Kerry. All Kerry does is simply use the same old complaints about every single move President Bush does. All the while parading a stream of people willing to put on their poor and destitute faces and clothes and say it is Bush's fault they are in what ever state they are in.
I do not know how much is too much to pay someone who has dedicated that many years to learn a skill that saves a baby's life, but all that I have or will ever have would be considered a bargain.