Of course, the 21% cut in Medicare payments is not connected with HCR - it's part of the current system. The House already passed a plan to avoid this, but the Senate Republicans ensured it cannot pass the Senate.
* I will preface by saying profit motive should not be the #1 motive for entering medicine. That being said, what's wrong with doctor's having some notion of financial incentive for their work? You're talking about people who are typically top 1% in the country at the high school AND college level who also undergo 4 more years of professional schooling and then 3-7 more years of residency training. Firefighting and police work are admittedly noble jobs but the requirements for becoming one are nothing compared to medicine. I look at physician compensation as the height of capitalism. People choose to work harder and longer than everyone else and should thus be compensated as such.
Back at you. As Basso pointed out, firefighters and policemen are employees of a municipal. To catch you up on this topic, McMark was replying to a post regarding private practices, not government employees or doctors who work for hospitals. So yes, it is a thoughtless post to ignore the topic of a post to insert a canned liberal response.
That's true for doctors. It's not quite as true for insurance accountants or many many other pieces of the health care system.
Agreed. But I pretty much agree with all points of the NEJM survey, especially that a gradual change is far less likely to impact delivery of healthcare than the sweeping changes proposed right now.
Whether they are municipal or not is irrelevant. You equated lacking a profit motive to working for free. Firefighters and police offices lack a profit motive and yet don't work for free. Private-sector employees of non-profits lack a profit motive and yet don't work for free. Your statement was stupid and not remotely well thought out. If you don't want to be called on them, don't make stupid statements.
But I *want* delivery of healthcare impacted. It does need a dramatic shakeup. Making minor tweaks to a broken system still leaves you with a broken system. I'm not saying this bill will solve all the problems, but piecemeal reform is worthless with a system as messed up as ours. It would require each successive Congress to make substantive changes - if you look at how much time/effort is required to make any change, to try to do that over and over would just lead to no reform at all. In terms of the timing itself, this reform already is gradual. It scales in over a period of about 5 years or so, with various pieces taking effect at different times.
Let me break it down for you. Many private practices are self-employed. Income - expenses = profit (aka: doctors paycheck). Stay on topic. We are not talking about employees. We are talking about private practices.
Speaking from the medical side, few if any doctors believe that the proposed changes will positively impact the delivery of healthcare. The NEJM survey reflects that. An astonishing 46.3% of primary care physicians (PCPs) believe that the changes will force them out of medicine. That's even before a projected shortage of tens of thousands of doctors in the next 20 years. If the reform continues to only take from doctors and not return any benefits then the delivery of healthcare will be grossly and negatively impacted; there will simply be no PCP's left. And then healthcare will collapse anyway.
Nope. I'm just your average misguided Liberal hoping for the best. Should be an easy win for you and basso.
Let's be reasonable, 13 of the top 15 highest paying jobs are doctors. Where else are you going to go to make that kind of money? Are all of these doctors going to go back to B school to be CEOs or train to be airline pilots? I doubt it. I guess out of spite all of these doctors are going to quit their practices and take an even bigger paycut in another occupation versus taking a potential paycut staying where they are. http://www.cnbc.com/id/23918484/
Actually, we're not - you specifically said: In other words, doctors should work for free? Please point out where that refers to self-employed people only. Nice try at backtracking, though.
The survey you refer to is not by the NEJM. It was a survey done by a physican search firm. It was not a scientific poll of any sort. Here's actual NEJM research, in detail: http://healthcarereform.nejm.org/?p=1790&query=home Doctors overwhelmingly support both a public and private option for insurance, and a majority also support expansion of Medicare. This was a poll that was does non-scientifically by a shady outfit that also said that 77% of young people supported McCain. http://blog.beliefnet.com/cityofbrass/2009/09/do-doctors-support-health-care.html It doesn't stand up to even the most basic statistical standards, and its quite clear the polling company doesn't understand how to do polling, based on the questions asked. I would also point out that all the lobbying groups that specifically represent doctors all support the legislation.
OK, since none of the wingnuts are stupid enough to take the bet but are venal enough to run with this "survey," I'll go ahead and debunk it... The "survey" was an email from a Physician headhunter firm. Here's their methodology: So, the results of this "survey," the results being trumpeted by the wingnuts near and far, are from the MDs who took the time to fill out an email form. Hardly a representative sample... and one wonders what level of MD has the time to devote to such nonsense... probably not a productive doctor. Additionally, the recruiting firm pimps themselves throughout the whole article... it is clearly a scare/ad tactic to try and gin up business with practices and hospitals. Finally, the "survey" had nothing to do with the NEJM. In fact, it was pimped in a recruiting newsletter put out by the publishers of the NEJM. Here's what the NEJM has to say about the whole thing... Curiously enough, that link is the one in basso's original post. Seems the NEJM got so tired of the wingnuts saying this was a NEJM survey that they took it down and replaced it with the above statement. If only basso had clicked through to his link he would have seen this. As it is, BillO and Beck ran with this distortion on their shows today even though they probably knew it was false, so one can't really expect more from basso. Sobering findings indeed.
Damn it Major... I've been waiting all day for the right time to drop the hammer on this ridiculousness. I finally get tired of waiting and pull together a post only to see you beat me to it. Curse you!
I think I can address many/most of these points. 1) That list is r****ded for many reasons but to address your point, no 13 of 15 high paying jobs are not doctors. #15 - Podiatrist - DPM, not an MD. Not equal to medicine. #11 - Dentist - Not a doctor. DDS #7 - Prothosdontist - Dentistry, not medicine. #5 - Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeon - Again dentistry, not medicine. #4 - Orthodontist - Again, dentistry. So 8, not 13. This is a pretty minor point but c'mon a dentist is not a doctor and neither is a podiatrist. Haven't you seen Seinfeld? 2) Many private practices are running barely even or are at a slight loss already. The amount of costs associated with both becoming a doctor and running a practice are enormous. Going to private schools for both undergrad and med school can easily put a person close to $350k in debt after med school and even more after residency, where one doesn’t make nearly enough to put a dent in that amount of debt. Doctors running a practice also have to deal with tons of overhead in running their business. Staff/Nurses/PA’s/Equipment/Facilities/Mal-practice insurance are all fixed costs and come before doctor pay. I do honestly believe if given the choice doctors would rather just close up shop than having to pay the same fixed costs while earning even less. People complain that they don’t get enough face time with doctors, well imagine cutting reimbursements and adding 40 million to healthcare. That amount of face time ain’t going up with this reform. You may be right in that doctors lack another high paying job to segue way into, but that does not mean they have to continue to work as hard as they do to make even less money. If the net result is losing money, they may as well fold their practice and not worry about the headache/stress.
You are so full of &*$% that it is coming out of your ears. As someone that works with doctors on a daily basis I can promise you that you do not have the slightest clue what you are talking about.
