[inthebox]

Suppose I could call YOU arrogant, if you think I want to spend $.75 cents of every dollar I make on health care, which is where it'll be in 10 years if we do NOTHING, instead of the $.25 cents I spend today.

Where do you get this figure?

And no one is FORCING YOU to spend YOUR MONEY in any particular way. Now the government can take your money in the form of taxes, and spend your money any way they see fit. Where is your outrage over that?




G&P

[inthebox]

Hello again, in:

When I said we're the market, I meant that WE'RE THE MARKET. When the change comes, it'll ALL change. Schools won't make fortunes for training doctors any more. Banks won't make fortunes loaning money to future doctors any more. Lawyers won't sue doctors any more if they can't get paid.

excon

And what do you base this prediction on? What has the cost of colllege done in the last several decades?

College tuition is far outpacing the cost of living - Aug. 20, 2008

Lawyers sue doctors to get money from the MALPRACTICE INSURERS, as well as the doctor, if that doctor has any assets. And lawyers do such a good job that this happens.

St. Paul Cos. Exits Medical Malpractice Insurance - The New York Times


Oh BTW, thinking that a lawyer won't sue is thinking a scorpion won't sting,

The Scorpion and the Frog



G&P

[excon]

And what do you base this prediction on? What has the cost of colllege done in the last several decades?

Hello in:

For a righty, you don't understand the market very well. How many students will the high priced medical schools attract if the doctors they produce CAN'T make money?? How many lawyer will sue, if they CAN'T make money??

When the market goes, ALL the supporting services will go too.

excon

[NeedKarma]

Is that your reply? To the information I link to prove my point? Can you logically counterpoint with facts and information? I won't change my style to accomadate you because I find one long paragraph with multiple points tedious.


G&P

No.

That wasn't my reply.


It was a comment. Your style make sa thread much



Longer than it needs be.


No need to accommodate me I guess.


Busy now, may reply later.






Me,


NK.

[speechlesstx]

Some people do go but it's a small number. It's another one of your talking points.

LOL, I just posted a brand new article, it wasn't me making the point.

Usually the healhcare program picks up the bill for any procedures done elsewhere so that the person does not experience financial hardship to boot. It matters not whethere you are a McDonald's employee or the CEO of Molson, you get cared for.

Um, I said "and footing the bill."

[ETWolverine]

You'd have to prove that cause/effect relationship.

Look at the people who run the US Postal Service.

They get paid less than the people who do similar jobs at DHL, UPS and Federal Express.

The US Postal Service is courting bankruptcy. They are cutting services (5 days of delivery instead of 6), cutting the number of post offices, cutting hours, cutting the number of mail boxes (by 1/2 according to one report I read) and will again be raising the price of stamps.

If you pay people less than other similar businesses will, you will get less competent employees, and they will run your business into the ground.

Please keep in mind that Obama's model for private insurance being able to compete with the "public option" was the Postal Service and it's competition with DHL, FEDEX and UPS. But the Postal Service is FAILING, and a huge part of that failure is due to the incompetence of the cut-rate-wage employees. That, and the general incompetence, inefficiency and waste of the Federal government.

You wanted proof of the cause and effect of wages to competence: here it is.

Elliot

[ETWolverine]

Hello again, in:

You should consider that we ARE the market. We're the biggest on the block. We're the last western nation to guard our health care profits. So, once THIS market goes, there ain't no other. Therefore, the guy who would have become a doctor, will become a banker...

Consequently, the people who become doctors will be those who want to SAVE people instead of get rich. Frankly, I'd rather have the former.

excon

TANSTAAFL

There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.

Doctors, even those who are completely altruistic in their desire to help others, still have to pay the mortgage and utility bills. Give them the choice between a job that pays well and one that doesn't, even the most altruistic person will bow to inevitability and take the job that pays.

That's why Canada has a shortage of doctors right now. So does the UK. And France. And Cuba. And Denmark. And Russia. And Poland. And Japan. And pretty much every other nation that has nationalized health care. (Norway, interestingly enough doesn't have a shortage, and their's the closest to a private health care system still left in Europe.)

We don't.

But I know, I know, profits are bad. Doctors have to be dirt poor and earn no money in order to be considered good guys. Otherwise, they're just in it for the profits and must be evil.

Elliot

[excon]

You wanted proof of the cause and effect of wages to competence: here it is.

Hello again, El:

Well, if the government is so incompetent, why are you worried about a public option?

excon

[NeedKarma]

We don't.

Situation Critical: U.S. ERs Face Shortage of Doctors - ABC News

Situation Critical: U.S. ERs Face Shortage of Doctors

ANALYSIS-Shortage of doctors could damage healthcare reform | Reuters

ANALYSIS-Shortage of doctors could damage healthcare reform

Country facing shortage of doctors - WTHR | Indianapolis

the country is facing a growing shortage of family doctors.

[excon]

TANSTAAFL There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.

Hello again, El:

I don't know. In the East you have private toll roads... I even drove on one... I'm sure it was built and run by highly paid private workers... But, it was just as smoooooooothe as any public road I've been on...

So, what's your point?

excon

[ETWolverine]

Hello in:

For a righty, you don't understand the market very well. How many students will the high priced medical schools attract if the doctors they produce CAN'T make money???? How many lawyer will sue, if they CAN'T make money????

When the market goes, ALL the supporting services will go too.

excon

Yep.

As a matter of fact, one of the ideas being floated by Obama was to make the tuition at medical schools free in order to continue to attract med students. That's cause Obama knows that if he stops hospitals from paying top dollar for their employees and cuts reimbursement rates, they will lose their best medical staff. So he's creating an incentive for them. He forsees the same loss of services that you are predicting, excon, and he knows it is inevitable under his proposed system of nationalized health care.

The problem with his solution is two-fold.

1) Who's will foot the bill for the free medical school?
2) If Medical school is free, by what standard will the wheat be cut from the chaff among candidates?

The answer to the first problem is obvious. WE WILL BE PAYING FOR IT IN HIGHER TAXES. Not only would we have to support the bloated bureaucracy of the government medical system, which drives the price of medical care anywhere from 35% to 500% higher than the private systems, but we will also have to support the cost of EDUCATING these doctors.

The second problem needs to be explained a bit further.

Part of the way that medical schools decide who are the best candidates are academic grades. Getting into medical school is academically hard for a reason. But there is another method they use... the cost of medical school. If a student doesn't believe that they will be a good enough doctor to make enough money to pay back his very high student loans, chances are he'll choose not to go to medical school. I didn't think I would be a very good doctor, even though I had pretty decent grades and would have been accepted into any number of medical schools. I became a banker instead. My brother did think so, and he's a radiologist. The COST of a medical school education keeps out some of the chaff and only lets in the wheat. It is not a perfect system by any means, but it works pretty well.

If you eliminate the COST of medical school, you are eliminating one of the ways that medical schools keep out less qualified practitioners. The result will be an increase in less qualified practitioners. If you combine that with salary capping and lower reimbursement rates for doctors, what you get is a migration of highly qualified candidates OUT of medicine, and a migration of less qualified candidates INTO medicine. Within a decade, you get a medical system that is MEDIOCRE at best, and downright tragic at worst.

Yes, lowering medical school costs may also allow some very qualified candidates who would not otherwise be able to afford medical school into the system. And that might be a good thing. But there is another factor that is often overlooked... the length and difficulty of an extended medical education.

Lawyers go to school for 4 years and then make top dollar at some law firm, corporate interest or in private practice. But doctors go to school for 4 years. Then they have internships for between 1 and 3 years, depending on specialty. Then they become Residents. Then they take boards which take a year to study for. Then they go into fellowships for several years to practice their specialty. During all this time, they are working DOG hours (36-hour shifts, long on-call periods, etc.) and getting paid relatively low. We're talking about a 10-12 year medical education before the doctor is ready to make any serious money. There's a huge sacrifice in Medicine that doesn't exist in Law or Accounting or even Dentistry.

Now... Let's say you're a poor person who has been interested in medicine since you were 6 years old. You want to help people. You are smart and have good grades. But you find out that you can't afford medical school. You are disappointed, but life's full of little disappointments, and you learn to go on in some other field of endeavour.

Then you find out that medical schools are going to be free. You are excited to be able to go. You figure, in a few years, after a long and hard education, you'll be able to write your own ticket.

Then you find out that it is going to take you 12 years of education before you can "write your own ticket" after all. And even after that 12-year period of working like a slave for what in your career path is considered minimum wage, you have now been told that your salary will STILL be limited by the government, and won't be all that high after all.

On the other hand, you can get into lawschool just as easily and be making top dollar in 4 years. You might want to help people through medicine, but you don't want to be poor in order to do it. You can help more people as a rich attorney making donations to large charities than you can as a doctor working 60 hour weeks for no pay.

What do you do?

The chance of getting a few more VERY ALTRUISTIC and very qualified poor people to go to med school does not offset the number of middle-class and upper-class people who are also highly qualified who will choose NOT to go into medicine in the new environment.

This very problem has plagued the UK medical system since the 1940s and 1950s, and they still haven't figured out how to counter it without privatizing the system. France has similar problem, as do most European countries. Canada has seen a migration of medical talent from Canada to the USA because the pay is better. All of this has been documented in various studies. And it WILL happen here if we let Obama have his way.

Elliot

[excon]

Hello again, El:

You're very good at hyping conservative ideology. However, as we learned from the Bush and Reagan years, when put into actual practice, it fails.

I don't disagree that many people WON'T become doctors because they can no longer get rich. I DO disagree that the new class of doctors pursuing the field will be less qualified that their predecessors.

excon

[ETWolverine]

Hello again, El:

Well, if the government is so incompetent, why are you worried about a public option?

excon

I'm worried because it isn't going to be an option.

The way this is all being set up, it will FORCE people into the public "option". Here's how:

1) Anyone who doesn't have private health care in the year in which the "public option" is made available will not be allowed to obntain private health insurance. They will be FORCED to take the public option.

2) Any companies with more than $750K in revenues (which is most small businesses) that do not offer private insurance to their employees will be forced to either offer the public option or will be forced to pay a 7.5% non-insurance tax (ostensibly to cover the cost to the government for insuring all those employees). The costs of EITHER obtaining private insurance that they can't afford OR being forced to pay the non-insurance tax will force many small businesses out of business. That will force their employees and themselves onto the public option by din't of the fact that they are uninsured (see #1).

3) By making medical insurance a taxable item, the government will be driving the cost of private health insurance up, forcing many individuals and businesses to go with the government option because it will be the only way to manage costs.

4) By regulating the private insurance companies up the wazoo, the government is driving the cost of private insurance through the roof. Businesses and individuals that have to choose between the artificially inflated prices of private insurance caused by that regulation or the public option will choose the public option... because of non-market forces that are driving private insurance costs.

In short, the government has stacked the deck. They control the means of supply via regulation the laws by which the private insurance companies and private businesses must operate.

So it is not that people will CHOOSE the public option. It's that they won't have any choice at all, because the government will be FORCING them to take the government option.

The CBO estimated that something like 125 MILLION Americans will be FORCED off their private health insurance and into the public option against their will on day one that the legislation takes effect. That's roughly 41% of the US population.

So... what worries me is not that there will be FAIR competition between the government and the private sector. What worries me is that there WON'T BE fair competition between the government and the private sector, because the government has stacked the deck.

You want real competition in medical insurance? Open up inter-state commerce between insurance companies like we have with auto-insurance. Allow portability of medical insurance. Allow build-your-own-insurance planning the way we do with auto insurance and life insurance. Create REAL competition between the insurance companies.

You want real competition between the government and private insurance? Stop the government from stacking the deck with tax laws over small businesses and regulation over the insurance industry. Until then there is no competition, there is only the power of government over individuals and private companies.

Why am I worried about a public option? Because it ain't going to be optional.

Elliot

[ETWolverine]

Hello again, El:

You're very good at hyping conservative ideology. However, as we learned from the Bush and Reagan years, when put into actual practice, it fails.

Really? When did the Reagan policies fail? Reagan caused the largest period of economic growth in our history, with personal wealth increasing at a massive rate never before seen in history. And Bush II pulled us out of a massive recession caused by Clinton and the 9/11 attacks in record time, DESPITE the actions of the Dems in fighting those policies.

I don't disagree that many people WON'T become doctors because they can no longer get rich. I DO disagree that the new class of doctors pursuing the field will be less qualified that their predecessors.

Excon

Tell it to the Canadians, the French, the Brits, the Poles, the Checks, the Swiss, the Spanish, etc.

All of them have issues with both the quantity and the quality of the doctors in their countries.

Whereas we have the best doctors in the world, and plenty of them.

So you can disagree all you like. You're still wrong.

Elliot

[ETWolverine]

Excon,

Have you ever wondered why rich doctors get rich?

It probably has something to do with their compentence. They are GOOD at their jobs, and they become rich doing those jobs.

Take away the ability to become rich, and all you are left with are mediocre doctors who do a mediocre job for mediocre pay. While the people who are really good go on to do something else for a living and get rich doing it.

It's called competition. While it is true that employees have to compete for the best jobs, you seem to forget that employers have to compete for the best-qualified employees. Take away their ability to compete, and they won't get the best. The best will go just elsewhere because they ARE the best and can afford to.

Elliot

[excon]

The best will go just elsewhere because they ARE the best and can afford to.

Hello again, El:

It's like I was telling in, when our market goes, there's no elsewhere to go. They could try banking. They could use some of the "best".

excon

[zippit]

Hello again, El:

So, when you're sick, it's time to go begging... You're something else.

excon

You twisted talking about alternative care

Into being sick and begging pg11

[excon]

you twisted talking about alternative care into being sick and begging pg11

Hello again, zip:

I don't know about the twisting part, but I couldn't find it on page 11. If I did, when I did it, it WAS in context with the general conversation going on at that time...

But, if you're saying that I don't argue fair, don't argue with me then. I got my hands full enough trying to correct the wrong ones we already got.

excon

[ETWolverine]

Hello again, El:

It's like I was telling in, when our market goes, there's no elsewhere to go. They could try banking. They could use some of the "best".

excon

As you point out, they will simply NOT GO INTO MEDICINE, and instead go into other industries, like law, banking, accounting, computers, etc. Anything that pays better than medicine. They will just exit medicine.

Thanks for proving my point for me.

I'll take it as another win, thanks.

Elliot

[excon]

As you point out, they will simply NOT GO INTO MEDICINE,
Thanks for proving my point for me.

Hello again, El:

You have to win all sides before you can claim victory... The part you're missing, is that people who would have had to work for Wal Mart, are going to be able to go to medical school. Cause being a doctor, even under socialized medicine will still pay better.

Sorry, Wolverine. Wrong again.

excon