Very odd that a Rice grad cannot grasp the substantial difference between universal coverage and nationalizing health care.
Dear Abby, My husband is a liar and a cheat. He has cheated on me from the beginning, and, when I confront him, he denies everything. What's worse, everyone knows that he cheats on me. It is so humiliating. Also, since he lost his job six years ago, he hasn't even looked for a new one. All he does all day is smoke cigars, cruise around with his buddies while I have to work to pay the bills. Since our daughter went away to college he doesn't even pretend to like me and hints that I may be a lesbian. What should I do? Signed: Clueless Dear Clueless, Grow up and dump him. Good grief, woman. You don't need him anymore! You're a United States Senator from New York running for President of the United States. Act like one. Abby
For the last time, I'm not advocating paying doctors minimum wage or the same as teachers. I am saying that by the choice of their profession, they have a duty to society beyond which they get paid. I don't get why this is such a hard concept for folks to understand. And... while there is a difference in skillsets, it's not the linear progresion you're suggesting. There are very different skillsets... baseball and hockey rather then intramural and pro.
Do firefighters and policemen go through 8 years of training? Apples and oranges, rimrocker. You can't sit here and say that rock-bottom wages are going to attract America's brightest when trying to recruit future doctors. You just can't. When the medical profession (i.e. those in the know) is so against the plan, perhaps you should take notice.
The marketplace doesn't determine how many doctors the nation has, as it does for engineers, pilots and other professions. The number of doctors is a political decision, heavily influenced by doctors themselves. Isn't it nice to be able to control the supply? link
Poor comparison though because people are paid to their level of replace ability. Like it or not, if a teacher quits over salary or a fireman dies in an inferno, they are easily replaced. That is why their salaries aren't as high as they should be in comparison to their value to society. They just are too easy to replace. Doctors aren't. The schooling and training required to produce a doctor FAR outweighs most professions and therefore they are compensated highly. When you start removing the high compensation, the incentive for many of them (right or wrong) to go through hell for a huge chunk of their youth before becoming a successful doctor just isn't as appealing. Duty to society be damned to be honest. Most people don't choose their professions because of compelling feeling of "duty to society." That goes for doctors, teachers, military personnel, firemen, police officers, etc. They all have their own reasons, but very few due it for the good of society.
Read my last three posts please. Your musings have nothing to do with what I wrote. By the way, to reach the highest levels of firefighting, you usually need a graduate degree, definitely lots of training (classroom and on-the-job) in everything from advanced meteorology to the physics of fire behavior to the acceptable pressures in hose configurations, and a minimum of 20 years experience (more likely, 25-30). It is indeed apples and oranges.
Although many/most providers have a high level of devotion to their patients, other personal goals can conflict with this responsibility. For instance, it is well proven that doctors as a group have sought to increase personal revenue at times at the expense of patients and society. It would be foolish to think they will always be acting in the best interest of patients and society; they also have responsibilities to their families. There should be no blank checks and no perverted market incentives (i.e. more physicians = more volume, not lower prices as expected and desired). These problems will not get fixed on their own.
thats what important to consider. You can talk about how people should do this and that out of duty to society...but thats just not being realistic. Sure, in a perfect world but we are not there yet. In the mean time, people choose to do things to make them better off. And typically i think its more than fair to say that "because its my duty to society" would not be high on that list.
That may be your own biases coming through. I know lots of people who would say it is an important part of their job and life.
Apples and oranges... Firefighters come up with ingenious way to get the guy safely to the hospital, doctors take it from there...
Continue the diversion. To me, firefighters are some of the biggest heroes. When I was a college student and volunteer firefighter, I seriously considered quitting Chemical Engineering and going to fire school. Sometimes, I still regret not doing it.
rimrocker, I agree with your standing of social duty a doctor has. If someone is dying on a plane and a doctor is needed, I'm the first one there. If there's a car crash on the highway, I will stop. If a man is having a heart attack in a restaurant, I will be there to do my best to sustain his life with the materials I have until he can go to a place with higher care, all for free. It comes with the job. A portable AED (defibrillator) machine costs a thousand bucks, and once I am licensed I will save up for one and put it in my trunk. I just think that there are things beyond the scope of social duty, such as: 1. Emergency rooms and medicaid patients going there for a runny nose, because they know it's paid for, regardless of the cost to the hospital, making the trauma patient wait longer than they need to 2. The illegal immigrants with no insurance that will take advantage of the system, raising hospital charges and cutting docs wages 3. The person affected by the cost cuts, receiving sub-par medical care and finding a way to file suit against the doc Don't be misled, I am empathetic towards those with no insurance. It's called charity events, a student-run clinic, that I go to 8 hours a month. I give my time, I also give money I don't have (loans, part of my MASSIVE debt) even though it's not much, to organizations promoting healthcare. I am especially empathetic towards those who actually PAY for their insurance. They deserve higher quality of care. While they are the ones that are working, shouldn't they have better choices? I'm all for rewarding hard work. It's ironic that the ones that don't work are flooding the system with frivolous cases while the ones that are paying, are using their time earning an income, and don't have time to drain docs. They use their medical plan when a case is serious enough for them to take a day off and bring themselves or a loved one in.
I disagree. The nations with better health care still have high quality physicians. Just because they aren't making top dollar doesn't mean physicians will all of a sudden become hacks.
I am curious to know why is there a requirement of four years college before medical school? I know in many countries people can attend medical school directly out of high school just like other college majors.
The premise is that doctors must be well grounded in the sciences and humanities before specializing, a concept stretching back to the Eighteenth Century. However, considering today's technology, we might just start the specialization process in high school and continue through college. However, I would add one caveat: Adopt the Australian rule. The Australians dismiss the bottom 10% of any college class. That keeps the students hustling if they want to stay in school. Drop the bottom 25% and only the brightest make it upstream.
