Posted on 09/12/2009 2:00:00 PM PDT by eartotheground
President Obama has promised to pay for health care reform mostly by ridding the system of wasteful spending. The message is that reform will be painless: We're cutting the fat, not the meat. But what if your paycheck is part of the fat? More to the point: Does cutting back on wasteful health care spending mean that doctors will make less money?
Actually, let's split that question in two. The first is whether U.S. doctors are overpaid. The second is whether paying them less would save all that much. The answers, respectively: yes and no.
There's no question that doctors in the United States make a lot of money, especially compared with their counterparts abroad. American doctors make, on average, four times what French doctors earn. And it's not just because everyone in America makes more money: The gap between doctors' incomes and those of professionals is far bigger in the United States than elsewhere. In the 1990s, the ratio of the average American doctor's income to the average American employee's income was about 5.5. In Germany, it was 3.4; Canada, 3.2; Australia, 2.2; Switzerland, 2.1; France, 1.9; Sweden, 1.5; the United Kingdom, 1.4.
(Excerpt) Read more at slate.com ...
Who would pay the lawyers’ fees for all their phony malpractice suits? I mean, just think of John Edwards penniless and trying to support all his progeny.
Looks like he is fresh out of ‘journalism school’.
Where they go to ‘make a difference’.
Not report the news.
Idiots. The Law of supply and demand cannot and will not be repealed by Congress. If even they really really, truly truly, for sure, want to do so.
So well said it needed to be posted again.
HOLLYWOOD STAR SYSTEM BROKEN!!!
Take the money from the rich stars and give it to the poor aspiring actors
I’m writing this from a hospital bed.
Considering the demands on doctors’ time, resources, responsibility, and knowledge I’m observing from here, they earn every penny they make. What other jobs get low pay for making life-risking decisions based on obscure symptoms out of the blue at oh-dark-thirty? These guys screw up and I could die! PAY THEM! They’re worth it.
It would seem to me that doctors (like many professionals) could require their patients to sign binding arbitration agreements before they treat them. I wonder why that doesn't happen?
Like lawyers and other professionals, drs. come in the great, good, mediocre and sorry categories.Thank God, we have been able to choose. Under Obamacare, it will be like when we were in the military--you get what's there. Mostly, we were fortunate, but even in the military (big fort) I had to get someone I knew to get our teenage son in to see the best orthopedic surgeon out of 6 there. The one he was seeing was a hack who wanted to take out his kneecap, but he got in to see a specialist in athletic injuries, thanks to a friend who was a clinic secretary. No choice and possibly no care is the worst aspect of Obamacare, and Koolaid drinkers cannot see it.
vaudine
This falls under the “worst-kept secret in the world” heading. O’Bozo knows it; Piglosi knows it; the dhimmicrat party knows it too.
They have to know that, even if they had an outside shot at ramming obamacare through, those hopes died in August.
So what is their agenda now? They can’t be stupid enough to think that obamacare still has a chance do they?
Chris is an other National Socialist.
I stand (or rather sit) corrected...
This physician is about ready to bail! I’ll wait it out in Berlin studying classical piano technique. Physicians are fed up and if the “Chicago machine” takes over healthcare, it’s all over. There won’t be any doctors over the age of 30 practicing. Hope and Change!
Since Medicare Part B originated in 1965, ALL MD specialist training at ALL US facilities has been paid for by Medicare Part B. The numbers of specialists trained have been 100% controlled by our government since then. A pilot program in NY, statewide in 1999 or 2000 tested a reduction of 25% of training positions for ALL specialties to see if the institutions could get along with less ‘residents’. They did OK due to the load being picked up by the salaried and PRIVATE STAFF MDs. The NEXT year, 25% of all specialty training slots were cut NATIONALLY. Shortage, indeed. Govt. creates the problems, draconianally, then offers the ‘solution’.
As part of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Bill of 1987 during the Reagan administration with a Democrat Congress, major specialist Medicare reimbursement cuts were made for all surgical specialties beginning in 1991. The massive cuts were not announced and caught the surgical specialiste quite by surprise on Jan. 1, 1991. The cut more than accounted for the monies MDs paid for malpractice premiums. The cuts effectively reduced medicare MD reimbursements to varying degrees by specialty..some were cut up to 65%!..the rates have held FLAT since 1991, 18 YEARS! Replace MD surgical specialist compensation to 1990 levels and the problem with MDs accepting Medicare patients for fianancial reasons disappears, and the malpractice premium problem is reduced significantly . Again, the govt. caused the problem, and, now offers draconian solutions...like national ID cards in return and association with medical care.
Medicare Part D (medications), is what really has broken medicare..it is bigger than parts A, B, C combined. When Medicare A, B, C existed alone, MD costs, after the reductions of 1991, were about 18% of the budget. NOW, after Medicare Part D, MD costs in the insolvent system are below 10% of the budget. Govt. and the public would like it even lower. Lots of luck.
To really save money the govt could adopt the Soviet ‘feldsher’ system for local medical representation...look it up. It could also shorten medical school to a two year AA degree after High School (who needs medical Phds anyway?), and, shorten specialty training to one year while experienced specialists exist with decades of high level experience to maximize the skills transferred in an efficient manner. Just thinking. The current Administration and Congress have SO MUCH to deconstruct and streamline in a more cost effective manner.
I asked them how it couldn't come to that. Doctors charge too much, for unnecessary procedure and by extension the are paid to much.
Why should someone who is charged with helping a person live profit?
If the doctors wages are cut down to whatever the government thinks how much should their Nurse Assistant be paid? Sure their service is important but not as important as a doctor, who is taking a cut in pay. Surely they cold afford a cut in pay. They are after all helping another human live, it doesn't quite seem fair.
To this I wonder if specialists aren't earning more than is fair, at the expense of people who can ill afford the care provided. In fact, aren't they really taking advantage of another human being, who they should help to live?
Are they lab professionals really worth the money paid to them? Many are paid bonuses for the amount of work they provide. Should they really make money on the back of some ones health?
Are we not “our Brothers keeper” just as Cain responds to God?
Shouldn't each of us individually work for the common good?
Should our motivation not be one of “greed” but of altruism?
I ask, because I want know where it is written that all men are beholden to another and while one may profit their health, the financial gains of another should be lost?
/S
that's a great way to get more good doctors. not
The Messiah doesn't want hand me downs, he wants a legacy of his own when he destroys our republic form of government.
There. This is a much better and reasonable solution to our healthcare problems!
Good grief. This guy is sadly mistaken. U.S. doctors are not overpaid. If he is wanting to compare U.S. doctors with doctors in other countries, he would be more correct in saying that doctors in other countries are underpaid. This is nonsense.
Like, why isn’t Newsweek cutting its prices?
The Plymouth Colony under Gov. Carver nearly starved to death because it followed similar communalist ideas...look up this early socialist communal experiment in utilitarianism. English colonists, under the reforms of Gov. Bradford, rewarding personal effort, accountability with profit, allowed the Colony to survive and thrive....and, history of a very positive sort was made before the ‘modern’ ideas of socialism from France arrived more than a hundred years later.
No nation-state can survive socialism ultimately, as it requires wealth generation to fund its operations. We, as a country eschewed wealth generation from labor and goods production with the introduction of Lyndon Johnsons’ ‘consumer’ society which has been maintained and institutionalize here since then. When wealth generation stops, then only piracy ensues until there are no more targets. We are in the target phase, and, only the rich are left, the pickings increasingly slim, and our credit rating internationally is effectively dead. Nothing good can come of redistributionist thinking. It was proved to the world in the 1620s.
Capitalism has not failed. We just moved away from it with a ‘consumer’ society and by avoiding bankruptcy in 1971 with our conversion to a DEBT_CAPITALIST system...we would borrow to infinity to subsidize spending, as WE LACKED ADEQUATE CAPITAL. Now the world does not have, or even want to loan us their CAPITAL., and, socialism, the end result of DEBT-CAPITALISM, is near the end of its rope.
The rich and the middle class are woefully undercapitalized to pay for the dreams of the ‘father’ in office.
Yes. He is building a legacy he envisions, wishes and seeks. It just may not be what he imagines. If you wish God to laugh, TELL HIM YOUR PLANS! I think God is beginning to laugh.
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