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Atlas Shrugs: Doctors ‘Going Galt’
Human Events ^ | October 13, 2009 | Ralph R. Reiland

Posted on 10/14/2009 7:48:11 AM PDT by bamahead

The headline in Investor’s Business Daily, Sept. 16, 2009: “45% of Doctors Would Consider Quitting If Congress Passes Health Care Overhaul.”

The headline in the Boston Globe, Sept. 28, 2009: “States risk it, raise tax on rich.”

The problem with four of nine U.S. doctors saying they “would consider leaving their practice or taking an early retirement” is that “the number of doctors is already lagging population growth,” reports IBD.

Add millions of new patients to a shrinking supply of doctors and the obvious result is an English-style queue, longer waits in pain, and a centrally directed rationing of service.

That Boston Globe article on soaking the rich explains that New York’s increased confiscation of income from the “deep-pocketed rich” through higher taxes is producing a “millionaires’ exit.”

Said New York’s lieutenant governor, Richard Ravitch, regarding the flight of the state’s millionaires and the decline in government revenues that has already occurred as a result of the higher tax rates: “People aren’t wedded to a geographic place as they once were.”

In Atlas Shrugged, a novel by Ayn Rand, the most productive and creative citizens in the United States -- the innovators, risk-takers, artists, entrepreneurs, capitalists, intellectuals, industrialists -- overturn the conventional concept of victimhood and go on strike, refusing any longer to be exploited by society, refusing to be demonized as too successful, too rich, too individualistic, too free.

Led by John Galt, the novel’s hero, the industrious organize a strike against the ever-expanding yoke of government coercion. They strike to halt the murder of man’s spirit, to halt the confiscation of man’s work, to defend individualism, reason, liberty, human achievement and the market economy.

(Excerpt) Read more at humanevents.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Extended News; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: atlasshrugged; economy; galt; goinggalt; healthcare; liberty; obamacare; socializedmedicine; tyranny
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To: BossLady

Happy to have them in Israel, but the 4 HMOs in Israel are no prize.


81 posted on 10/14/2009 2:10:35 PM PDT by Jewbacca (The residents of Iroquois territory may not determine whether Jews may live in Jerusalem.)
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To: justiceseeker93; AdmSmith; Berosus; bigheadfred; Convert from ECUSA; dervish; ...
Thanks justiceseeker93.
82 posted on 10/14/2009 3:00:20 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/__Since Jan 3, 2004__Profile updated Monday, January 12, 2009)
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To: kosciusko51
"The population will be adjusted to match the number of doctors available. "

Yep! The "final" solution....

Hmmm! That has a familiar ring to it....

83 posted on 10/14/2009 3:19:38 PM PDT by SuperLuminal (Where is another agitator for republicanism like Sam Adams when we need him?)
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To: GBA
I still don't understand the requirement for professions to be licensed by the state in a free country, such as doctors or even beauticians.

Licensing is always demanded by the profession, as a means of keeping down the numbers and raising pay. In the case of doctors, the AMA long ago got laws passed that only doctors from accredited medical schools could be licensed. The schools were made to understand that if they graduated too many doctors, their accreditation would be removed. Doctors have been running a cartel since the early 20th century.

As for beauticians, it's the same thing. While I was still in high school, I was taking a bus trip. In the seat behind me were two would-be beauticians on their way to Columbus (OH), cramming for the beautician exam. I already knew enough science to know that the answers they were memorizing, about electrolysis, were scientific balderdash. But the exam questions are prepared by those who are already members of the profession. After all, who else is qualified to prepare them? Certainly not any mere outsider. < /s>

84 posted on 10/14/2009 4:59:26 PM PDT by JoeFromSidney
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To: rightinalabama

I am a CNA, and I plan to quit working as a CNA if this passes. I’ll just go back to working in retail or doing clerical work. I’m not going to be assisting with euthanasia or be told not to care for people because they need to go and die, and the fed doesn’t want to pay for their basic treatment.

Many of us who work as support staff side with the doctors planning on retiring. I used to work in a nursing home. The entire staff said they would quit the medical field (CNAs, nurses, PA, administrator, social worker, the manager, the facility doctor) if Obamacare passed.


85 posted on 10/14/2009 5:38:44 PM PDT by nevadagrl435
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To: mnehring

My doctor friend was planning to retire until Bernie made off with all his money.


86 posted on 10/14/2009 5:39:15 PM PDT by AZLiberty (Yes, Mr. Lennon, I do want a revolution.)
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To: mnehring

RE: “I know a couple of doctors as well who plan to retire early.”

*************

So do I — a married couple, both doctors in their late fifties, decided to hang it up a few months ago as they saw what was coming.............. this was never their plan years ago — they figured they’d practice into their seventies as a few others I’ve known have done.

Doctors have long been known to keep practicing beyond 65 — no longer seems to be true, eh?


87 posted on 10/15/2009 11:09:37 AM PDT by CaliforniaCon
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To: blam

Re: “More Affirmitive Action doctors?”

************

Maybe............ ack! Just give me Zero’s “pill” instead.


88 posted on 10/15/2009 11:12:50 AM PDT by CaliforniaCon
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To: Bryanw92

Re: “>>You cannot make someone go back to work if they don’t want too.”

and............

“In a FREE country, you can’t. Welcome to Soviet America, comrade!”

***********

I visited Moscow in the old Soviet Union years — 1977. They were so proud that everyone had a job back then — old ladies, like well into their eighties, had jobs. They were sweeping the streets, literally. The poor old things looked exhausted.

Everyone had a house — yeah, a broken down apartment shared with another family. Cars were hard to come by and windshield wipers in short supply so when an owner left his car, he took the wipers with him to avoid theft.

Everything was govt. run — food stores, autos, you name it. Doctors were paid the same as cabbies — there’s some incentive, eh?

If you wanted green beans, you bought Soviet green beans — there were no CHOICES. Two car brands and govt. owned both. All the while communist party higher-ups shopped in special secret Kremlin stores, saw western trained doctors, etc.

I fear we are headed down this road — and I’ve never been so angry/upset over political issues in all my 60 years.


89 posted on 10/15/2009 11:24:24 AM PDT by CaliforniaCon
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To: CaliforniaCon

There are a couple of reasons that the leftists want just such a system.

One is to enhance the DIFFERENCE in lifestyle between them, the ruling class, and the serfs.

The other is simply that they are control freaks, and can’t stand the idea of someone living in a way they don’t approve of.


90 posted on 10/15/2009 11:26:20 AM PDT by MrB (Go Galt now, save Bowman for later)
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To: Savage Beast

You can see the same thing in other professions. I was a land surveyor for 45 years. During that time I had countless people tell me I should get my license and set up my own business. During that same time though, I saw my various employers spend more time in one sort of litigation or another than actually surveying. It wasn’t the sort of life I wanted.

When I was a child the surveyor in our county was an honored title. He was well known as an honest man and his work was seldom questioned. His only license was a local business license which listed himn as a “Land Surveyor,” Now, due to the influence of attorneys who actively search out clients for lawsuits, a Surveyor has to be licensed by the State after several years of education and experience. He has to carry expensive insurance policies to cover any errors or omissions and the regulations for filing and registering a survey are constantly changing, making it almost impossible to stay in business.

Professionals in every field have many of these same hurdles to clear every day. Small wonder that medical doctors are looking for a way out of the maze. I chose to stay out of it entirely and simply worked for a paycheck.


91 posted on 10/15/2009 11:30:17 AM PDT by oldfart (Obama nation = abomination. Think about it!)
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To: bamahead

bump to the top


92 posted on 10/15/2009 6:26:44 PM PDT by GOPJ (Not a dime of taxpayer funds to build municipal stadium for the NFL.Freeper:afoolinparadise)
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To: bamahead; PGalt; Dagny&Hank; dAnconia; John_Galt518; Wyatt's Torch; OwenKellogg; ...
"To embrace a collectivist system ... and thereby jeopardize sustained economic growth, inevitably misallocate scarce resources, and almost necessarily perpetuate destitution, hardly merits moral acclaim. Indeed, intellectuals in general and church leaders in particular who bewail the continued existence of poverty absolutely defined, and who state that they yearn for a world in which the hungry are fed, the naked clothed, and the destitute housed, yet who ceaselessly undermine the very system which, to date, has best done what they claim to value most, are, surely, moral imbeciles." --The Reverend Doctor John K. Williams, here:  http://freedomkeys.com/gap.htm
93 posted on 10/15/2009 8:07:28 PM PDT by FreeKeys ("America's socialists want more control over our lives, property and our pocketbooks." - Walter Wms.)
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To: Mr Inviso
I’ve heard a number of doctors discussing what they are going to do if this mess gets enacted.

I know one very good physician who put in his notice today.

94 posted on 10/15/2009 8:11:46 PM PDT by ladyjane
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To: bamahead; All

The most distressing and disturbing thing was to see all those “Doctors” at the White House being handed white coats to participate in staged government propaganda.

Even worse, is the concept of these supposedly educated people willingly cutting their own throats in the name of starry-eyed liberal ideology.

Good God.


95 posted on 10/15/2009 8:35:40 PM PDT by rlmorel (Obama, The Flatulence of One Thousand Black Dogs After Eating Boiled Eggs Be Upon Him...)
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To: yawningotter

Well, the point will be moot.

If you look at the nationalized health care, it does the following:

1.) Those “Student Loans” the government is going to be responsible for won’t be required to go to medical school. The education will be provided by the government (with the requisite class quota breakdown by gender and race, of course...)

2.) Medical students will be told what specialty they will work in.

3.) Graduating doctors will be told where to practice.


96 posted on 10/15/2009 8:45:19 PM PDT by rlmorel (Obama, The Flatulence of One Thousand Black Dogs After Eating Boiled Eggs Be Upon Him...)
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To: mnehring

Our doctor friend, recently at a high-level surgical convention, came back saying that many of his colleagues are considering closing out their practice and relocating off-shore. Some have already started.


97 posted on 10/15/2009 8:50:05 PM PDT by ArmyTeach
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To: FreeKeys; All

Thanks for the ping, post. Thanks to all posters. BTTT!


98 posted on 10/15/2009 9:11:39 PM PDT by PGalt
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To: oldfart

What you say is very interesting. I’m fed up with all this litigation. I don’t understand why everybody isn’t. Every time I see a ladder covered with warnings—or any such absurdity—I think of Gibbon.


99 posted on 10/15/2009 9:59:43 PM PDT by Savage Beast (29% of Americans think news organizations get the facts correct? No wonder we're in such a mess!)
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To: ladyjane
I know one very good physician who put in his notice today.

I have news for you, it isn't only physicians. I am a banker. It is becoming clear to me that I can either work for the OCC, OTS, FDIC or go Galt.

I'm going Galt.

100 posted on 10/16/2009 7:07:58 PM PDT by elkfersupper (Member of the Original Defiant Class)
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