Sorry I missed this thread - I did some reseach on this not too long ago and found this (good) report. http://www.citizen.org/documents/Texas_Liability_Limits.pdf My favorite part: And the ownage of MFW was well done. Rep for you refman.
False. We have licenses because we undergo close to 8,000 hours of medical education in a hospital for years 3 and 4. Then for residency, we undergo another 12,400 hours for an easy 3 year residency. We do 10 years of work in 5 years to be able to practice independently. Our salaries are not artificially high. We put in twice as many hours per week without any concept of off time, and we are burdened with a great deal of debt from 8 years of undergrad + medical school. That's why we're licensed. Otherwise every Tom Dick and Jane with a copy of ICD-10 would claim to be a doctor. It's why we get up in arms over some flybynight chiropractor school's alumni calling themselves doctors. Some people...
The problem with physician salaries is that its based on insurance and equalized payout for all. The people walking in the door don't pay most of the bill and therefore will agree to more than they normally would. Physician pay is just ridiculous and in a free market it would decline, but service would increase and healthcare service in offices is horrendous. A highly trained specialized physican from a top school should demand a higher compensation than someone from a school in Malaysia. Doctors complain and complain about socialized medicine (which we have in some part) but then make extraordinary amounts of money by gaming that system. Don't sit there on your high horse and talk about time spent as you can look at the hours spent by PhD's in varying subjects and people that have spent much more time in school and are not paid nearly that amount.
You can't even tell how an insurance company makes money. The only thing you've shown is your silly belief in your own opinion.
Holy crap. Stop the presses. For profit organizations keep certain cost reductions instead of passing them on to clients. We're breaking new grounds here. Simple question for morons such as yourself. Did malpractise premiums: a) Reduce OR b) Increase at a slower rate Sleep on it and get back to me. By then I expect a half moronic answer instead of a fully moronic one.
No, a physician's salary is based on what a hospital/group practice is willing to pay. A Hopkins trained physician going into private practice will earn more than a Texas Tech trained physician. If it's not salary, it's fee for service and that's based on the number of patients seen. Either way, it's not the insurance that determines how much money a physician gets paid in salary. Physician pay wouldn't decrease in a free market. We have a shortage of both physicians and residency positions. It costs a ton of money just to train a physician from MS1 to the end of residency, and a majority of it is already subsidized. A shortage means wages goes up. Most doctors do not complain about 'socialized medicine'. We complain about how ****ty insurance companies are, how reimbursements are decreasing 20% and other things. AMA and AAMC both supported the previous 'socialized medicine' bill. FALSE. There is no other academic speciality that requires someone to work 80 hours per week during years 3 and 4 of their education. Then 80 hours per week for another 10 years after they get their degree. I've worked in 2 research labs with many PhD candidates over the past years, and I've been exposed to dozens more from astrophysics to zoology, and not a single one of them can match the intensity of medical education. Researchers worry about worthless results and running out of grant money. Physicians worry about patients dying. Consider the following: A physician pays for four years of medical school, with their average debt upon graduation being at $150,000. The average time to practice is 10 years. During those 10 years, the resident will be making ~$45,000 annually making minimum payments. At this point, a researcher with their PhD will be completely debt free because their education is free, and likely be tenure track or working in industry. You do not go into medicine because it pays well.
What kind of license do you have apart from your driver's? Here's a site with a lot of info on malpractice: http://www.oginski-law.com/
Why do you or anyone else get to set the standard for who can and can't practice medicine? If I offer a service, and someone accepts it, it's none of your business, or anyone else's. Licenses exclude those that don't have them from practicing medicine, keeping the supply of medical services lower and raising the price, i.e. doctor's salaries. Also, when a state administers the license rather than say, a professional organization, there is no incentive or competition to improve the licensing standards. National and state licensing boards in effect have a monopoly on licensing standards. Walter Williams explains it best, starting at the 3:00 mark: <object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/7DS0XXFdyfI&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/7DS0XXFdyfI&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>
As usual, you supply a healthy dose of insults without really addressing the fundamental point - instead choosing to ignore such trivialities as "the subject at hand" in favor of tangential nonsense and poorly phrased quips to fend off your disastrously wrong conclusions. What was sold as a "good thing" for doctor premiums and, more to the point, the citizenry, was really an easy way to get support for a reform plan that would net insurance companies a hefty amount of dough. The reform plan itself makes it virtually impossible in TX to sue for malpractice unless it is unusually gross negligence. Unfortunately, I know this now from experience. Simple question for you MFW: did you happen to read the report I cited before spewing your usual venom? I have no desire to engage in conversation with someone who refuses to, at a minimum, do the same.
Let me try by breaking this in parts I knew reading wasn't your strong point so I'll highlight it for you again. In post #26 I said (my exact words) "While I think the whole malpractise insurance fees is blown way out of proportions, I wouldn't exactly write it off either when it comes to health care costs." Other words I've used to describe the potential cost savings: marginal, incremental. Unlike you and Refman's moronic insinuations, there is no magic bullet. I didn't expect there to be and didn't claim there to be one. The cost savings always was "MARGINAL." Hence although "while I think it is blown out of proportions," I wouldn't "write it off either." But since you're too stupid to figure it out, here's a dictionary: http://www.merriam-webster.com/ Based on what I've got from you, forget about health care, Texas has a far bigger problem with education. Like learning how to read and write, and comprehend.
I read it. What garbage. Texas health care was **** to begin with. It progressed worse. Population grew faster than the doctors because the time it take to train one. Coverage decreased as a result, despite the increase in number of doctors, big shocker. If the tort reform didn't take place, there would have been an even bigger shortage down the line. Insurance companies benefited, we knew that from the get-go. The key part is that doctors also benefited to an extent, increasing the probability of having more of them around in the future. Here are a few studies with far greater scope and in most cases, without the partisan spin: 1. CBO: http://cboblog.cbo.gov/?p=389
2. Ohio Department of Insurance: http://www.heartland.org/healthpoli...os_Medical_Liability_Reform_Lowers_Costs.html
Apparently the last article is too long. It'll be broken apart. 3. AHRQ: http://www.ahrq.gov/qual/liability/reforms.htm
AHRQ Con't... Plenty of additional studies in that link for you to chew on. Bottom line. Due to the very recent natures to the tort reforms, there are a very limited number of studies and very little data. But from what little we have, I am stoked. But of course with these things there's always a right way and wrong way to go about a reform. For Texas, putting lipstick on a pig, it's still a damn pig. Your problem is you blame the lipstick.
AHRQ Con't... Ah forget it. The key parts: Plenty of additional studies in that link for you to chew on. Bottom line. Due to the very recent natures to the tort reforms, there are a very limited number of studies and very little data. But from what little we have, I am stoked. But of course with these things there's always a right way and wrong way to go about a reform. For Texas, putting lipstick on a pig, it's still a damn pig. Your problem is you blame the lipstick.
You are stoked because you have an obvious, irrational bias favoring a system where doctors are beyond reproach and can tort with impunity. You fail to assess why prop 12 has failed to do what was promised...deliver a substantial reduction in doctor's premiums. The answer is that the legislation was funded by the insurance industry. The shell game was rigged.
Modern medicine is based on rigorous peer-reviewed scientific research. In fact, researchers go to great lengths determining the extent of which any treatment will affect a patient. Considering the risks associated with the practice of medicine, regulation of medical professionals is of public interest. In fact, all licenses are born out of public interest. Your driver's license, for example, compels you to drive with care, which is, actually, exactly the concept referred to by the term "standard of care" in medical malpractice. You cannot be more mistaken. National and state licensing boards are public institutions and they're also quite transparent. If their standards are insufficient, anybody can make an appeal to the government. In fact, again, this is what happens every board examination. The board exams, which is made by inviting medical professionals of good reputation to submit questions, of today include material not present in exams years ago to reflect the progress of the field.
Don't you need a license to practice medicine in most (all?) states? I was under the impression that doctors are already heavily regulated.
You know what I find fascinating - in all of the talk involving doctor salaries, no one ever mentions how much nurses get paid. If some of you haven't noticed, nurse salaries in some areas (e.g., CRNAs) are extremely high. In addition, they are starting to penetrate other areas of medicine, such as dermatology, in the hopes of offering similar services as doctors, but with less training (and believe me, the cost to you, the patient, is the same). I am always curious as to how people always talk about how doctors make so much money and need to make less, yet never take into account how much nurses make with the education they must take on. Also, to Commodore, without licenses, standards, and governing organizations, you have no benchmarks and/or requirements in which to hold and compare others in the same profession. And you incorrect that it is no one's business. It's society's business in that if you don't have proper training or knowledge to offer the services you purport to offer, then you are a hazard to the people in that society. Reverse the role for a second. If there were truly no licenses and no standards to live by, how exactly would you choose a doctor if you needed a kidney transplant? By how smart they sound to you or how well they convince you they'll do your operation? These standards are necessary - not perfect, but necessary.
