Semantics, fine 13 of the top 15 highest paying jobs are healthcare professionals . All on the list would be supposedly negatively affected by the reform. The point remains the top highest paid professionals are in healthcare. You know about that debt going in and there are no gurantees that you will be successful regardless of reform or not. And do what? Fold up shop and do what for the rest of their careers? Teach? Research? That doesn't pay nearly as much. Many of the doctors in my area have expanded their practices to include services such as lipo and plastic surgery to bring in extra revenue. They're not just going to close up shop.
Semantics? Not really. As much respect as I have for dentistry, it is not even close to being an allopathic (or even osteopathic) physician. Given the high pay and lack of high malpractice insurance, I'd say dentistry is an even better "profit motivated" career than medicine. There's a reason stuff like dentistry isn't even covered by national healthcare of Britain; its just not medicine. And DPM's, I respect them too but they also did not have to go through what allopathic physicians do either. Finally, boo f*in who? The people who worked harder and longer than everyone else make more money. How does that not make sense? I'm sorry but what? This just sounds like gibberish. A doctor knows he'll have to go in debt in order to become a doctor but shouldn't care if he gets renumerated enough to pay back said debt? That's terrible logic. If the government really wants to be fair to doctors and cut today's standard compensation, either pay for undergrad/med school or stfu. There's just no way you're going to sell medicine as a career to the intelligent next generation by saying "hey we're going to make you go half a million in debt to become a doctor and then give you no way to pay that back". Several states have already recognized this fact and have offered to pay for medical school to anyone who agrees to practice in the state as a primary care physician (e.g. Georgia). They understand that no one would be willing to take a substantial pay care without getting something back. Again, I don't think you understand the concepts of time invested and gross pay vs take home pay. The time and overhead of running a practice may be tolerable at $175k but at $125k you may as well close shop and just teach. Sure you're not making as much but you're also not expending nearly as much energy. Also, maybe some doctors don't want to treat a medical practice like a Walmart of healthcare. Say I go through 4 years of medical school and 5 years of a general surgery residency to do the procedures I want to do. You're telling me I have to reduce myself to doing liposuction just to have a viable practice? Screw that. What if I trained as a cardiologist? Should I just start doing lipo to whomever asks for it? That too makes no sense. I honestly think healthcare does need to be revamped. But ****ting on the doctors helps no one. It will just create disincentive to go into the field and discontent amongst the current doctors who stand to bear the brunt of the reform. Seriously, what are people's expectations here? Does everyone honestly believe that doctors are the ones trying to screw over patients? Cutting physician salaries won't magically make wait times shorter or lead to higher quality of care.
That is often not the case. The real case is that people who had connections, went to better schools (sometimes because of those connections) make more money. Trust me, without an inside connection it is next to impossible to get the best highest paying jobs. That said, working harder is a good thing and can definitely pay off, and be rewarding. But it won't get you the most money. That is reserved for people who have connections.
After this post, there really wasn't much left to discuss about this stupid thread. The OP poll talks about things not in the health care reform bill. The original poll is not scientific, and not conducted by the NEJM. The scientific polls show that most physicians support both public and private option. So all the crying about Doctors quitting, and nobody wanting to be a doctor is BS. The OP poll is meaningless. Major did a nice job of handling this, and it's odd to see people ignore his post like it didn't happen and keep trying to argue that doctors will all leave the field, and are opposed to health care reform. The real findings don't support the idea that inspired the creation of this thread.
your examples were firemen and police, not non-profits. it's pretty clear what you meant, and it's fascinating to watch the mask begin to drop as the debate heats up.
Yes, it's pretty clear to see that I was giving the most simple examples of people working without profit motive, and yet not working for free.
hahhahahahahaha!!!! Yeah right. That mask that major always wears. Wow! How fascinating to see it drop. Because that post was so different than all of the other posts major has made. You are hilarious. It is fascinating to watch you make posts that are only held to reality by the thinnest of fibers. Fascinating I tell you.
Is this RM95? You normally have consistency in your post, but you have gone from talking about private practices, government employees, and non-profit organizations. If a person works for a non-profit organization and receives a paycheck, they are working for profit.
There's a difference between a person being paid and an organization or business being for profit. In fact for profit and not for profit are codified distinctions. A not for profit business can still earn a ton of money and still be considered not for profit if they don't break the conditions of their 501c3. Whether employees make money or not doesn't change the status of not for profit or for profit.
Absolutely, a person working for a non-profit that gets a paycheck is working for profit. Just like a doctor getting paid is working for profit, even if the health care industry is not driven by profit motive, just as the non-profit was not driven by profit-motive. This is what makes your initial statement so ridiculous.
This is a nice sweeping statement with little practical application to medicine. If your definition of 'best highest paying job' is CEO, fine then some connections are probably nice. But in the contest of this thread where people are complaining that doctors comprise most of the spots on that 'highest paid job' list, then no, connections aren't putting people into better jobs in medicine. There are over ten thousand residency spots in the country; pretty much every residency director will tell you Board grades, clinical grades and basic science grades are the top three factors for any candidate.
I woulda just said he sounded like a crybaby who was jealous of those who had more success than him in life....
I wonder if basso will have the intellectual integrity to come back to this thread and admit that he was mistaken in attributing this survey to the New England Journal of Medicine? Oh wait. No, I don't.
Dr Seuss isn't a real doctor, you do know that. What is it you do? Exactly what did I say that wasn't correct and why?
It's what the current bill doesnt say.. As stated very well here by xcrunner51 "Private insurers set their reimbursement rates off of medicare. If medicare goes through with their anticipated 21% cut in medicare payments, private insurers will follow. Then most doctors running private practices will either become cash for service or just quit."
XC -- perhaps you should move to Canada. Granted -- its a single payer system -- several jumps to left from what's being considered in the US, but doctors there are self-employed, and a cardiologist can make 7 figures. And while there are concerns about GP earnings, they are, at least, doing better then break even which is an improvement over Granville's associates. (and thanks to the recent devaluation of the US dollar they've all recently had a 25% increase compared to their US counterparts!). Point is....the US isn't charting new ground here. The proposals are about as close to the status quo as you can get without doing nothing (that would be the status quo supported by 3.6% of the respondents to the bogus poll). Doctor compensation will be an issue -- as it is everywhere. But doctors in Canada, the UK, elsewhere in Europe and most other places that have a national component to their healthcare system are still driving Mercedes, and amongst the higher earners. What makes you think these watered down reforms with no public option will uniquely destroy a US doctor's ability to earn a high income, when that hasn't been the case elsewhere? I'm completely with you on the ridiculous costs for med school. Must be daunting to be that age with that much debt...and the differential between 'professional' and non professional degrees continues to grow at a mindboggling pace -- but that's a different rant. Meanwhile --- good luck with your studies. There are changes coming to the profession -- something 96.4% of the respondents to the biased poll agree with. But, I'm sure you'll be well taken care of financially. Ignore the fear mongering -- it ain't healthy.
Pay attention! Here's what I wrote. Doctors are already losing money or at best squeaking by on Medicare reimbursement. Private practices depend on a good mix of private insurance vs Medicare to balance their practice’s profitability.
By the way, I wonder if there is a report that shows what would happen to non-doctors should HCR fail to pass... Why, yes there is! And here's some of those findings: Even if you cut those projections in half, it is still a horrendous outcome. This is what Repubs want... or more accurately, this is what the Repubs don't want Dems getting credit for fixing. Regardless, they are firmly behind the status quo, which will do nothing except further damage our standing as the first and greatest middle class majority country on the planet.
Nobody is disputing the fact that the future looks bleak sans reform. I as well as most people in health care are in favor of reform, useful reform that is. Healthcare reform is an incredibly complex issue with literally dozens of issues that contribute to the mess we're in right now. This isn't to say around health care system is completely broken though. The United States is widely regarded as having some, if not the best, specialist care in the world. That is if you have the money you will receive the best care available. Among the major issues in healthcare: - the amount major pharmaceutical companies charge for their drugs. Studies show that the average pharm company spends more on marketing than they do on research and development (between 10-20% of expenditures). They also make huge profits. This needs to change. - the ridiculous complexity of the current insurance system that requires hospitals/clinics to hire personal just to deal with different insurance billing systems. This gross inefficiency also needs to change. - the relative lack of money people entering primary care make. Any country needs more PCP's than specialists and yet there is little financial incentive to enter primary care. -medical mal-practice is astronomically high especially for surgeons. -the list goes on and on.... My point on the current subject is that if you imagine all of the money spent on US healthcare as a pie chart, adding 40-60mil people to the group using that money without increasing the size of the pie makes everyone get a smaller slice. What is the incentive for the people who already have health insurance to suddenly face longer wait times and receive poorer care? Cutting physician income will likely be a part of future healthcare reforms but making it one of the cornerstones of reform before addressing other major issues makes it pretty unfair to doctors.
