Obama on healthcare bill

[Kratos]

We spend 680 BILLION a year on our military.

And we are complaining about taking care of sick people who can't afford to do so themselves?

.

What's the deficit this year? Somewhere from 1.3-1.8 trillion depending on who you ask...subtract 680billion and we're still running a deficit...why?

Mandatory spending: $1.89 trillion (+6.2%)
$944 billion - Social Security
$408 billion - Medicare
$224 billion - Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP)
$360 billion - Unemployment/Welfare/Other mandatory spending
$260 billion - Interest on National Debt
Discretionary spending: $1.21 trillion (+4.9%)
$515.4 billion - United States Department of Defense
$145.2 billion(2008*) - Global War on Terror
$70.4 billion - United States Department of Health and Human Services
$68.2 billion - United States Department of Transportation
$45.4 billion - United States Department of Education
$44.8 billion - United States Department of Veterans Affairs
$38.5 billion - United States Department of Housing and Urban Development
$38.3 billion - State and Other International Programs
$37.6 billion - United States Department of Homeland Security
$25.0 billion - United States Department of Energy
$20.8 billion - United States Department of Agriculture
$20.3 billion - United States Department of Justice
$17.6 billion - National Aeronautics and Space Administration
$12.5 billion - United States Department of the Treasury
$10.6 billion - United States Department of the Interior
$10.5 billion - United States Department of Labor
$8.4 billion - Social Security Administration
$7.1 billion - United States Environmental Protection Agency
$6.9 billion - National Science Foundation
$6.3 billion - Judicial branch (United States federal courts)
$4.7 billion - Legislative branch (United States Congress)
$4.7 billion - United States Army Corps of Engineers
$0.4 billion - Executive Office of the President
$0.7 billion - Small Business Administration
$7.2 billion - Other agencies
$39.0 billion(2008*) - Other Off-budget Discretionary Spending

[Mooseman33]

please spare me the bullshit about the cost of the war.
illegal immigration is whats killing us.

the amount of money these fvks drain us for in health care is discussing.
healthcare is fine the way it is, should be tweaked but stop serving the fvking illegals..

please tell me one good program the govt has ran, meaning succesfull?

[JDawg1536]

please spare me the bullshit about the cost of the war.
illegal immigration is whats killing us.

the amount of money these fvks drain us for in health care is discussing.
healthcare is fine the way it is, should be tweaked but stop serving the fvking illegals..

please tell me one good program the govt has ran, meaning succesfull?

You think the health care system is fine the way it is? You think this type of system is representative of the most powerful nation in the history of the world? You have some pretty low standards, friend.

As for a good program run by the government..... we have the most powerful military in the history of the world. Our libraries are kick ass too.

[thegodfather]

You think the health care system is fine the way it is? You think this type of system is representative of the most powerful nation in the history of the world? You have some pretty low standards, friend.

As for a good program run by the government..... we have the most powerful military in the history of the world. Our libraries are kick ass too.

Few things are fine the way that they are. However, most Americans, and most of the people posting in this thread just don't have enough knowledge about the way health care works, simple economic theories, and policy procedures in general. They certainly lack the ability to understand the legislation, and many cannot even understand how the current system works, or what the problems are.

One of the biggest fallacies, and in fact, outright lies, is that "THE FREE MARKET HAS FAILED HEALTH CARE IN THE UNITED STATES." This can only be true if there exists a free market in health care in the United States, and there does not, therefore it is impossible to say that the free market has not worked for health care.

There is NOT a free market in American health care. We have presently, a quasi-socialized, heavily heavily regulated, health care system. Medicare and Medicaid are huge socialized health care entities. On top of this fact, we have insurance companies which are highly regulated, and in some states REQUIRED to issue health insurance to those who apply for policies. Health care is not a right, insurance is not a right, etc, etc. Rights are not things which obligate a third party to provide something to you. They are things which you are born with, endowed with by your creator.

The fact that we are the most powerful industrialized nation in the country is irrelevant. Anyway, let me expand on my aforementioned points. I will try to make a bulleted post, as people seem to have ignored my many paragraphs of explanations.

Reasons that health care costs are out of control:

1. Medicare and Medicaid: These socialized systems are price fixers, they set reimbursements based on the dictates of Washington bureaucrats with no consideration for the market or what the market would dictate prices to be. Because Medicare/Medicaid do this, health care practitioners are forced to see more patients per hour, or to raise their prices on cash paying patients in order to maintain their income.


2. NO PRICE TRANSPARENCY: Laws actually FORBID health care practitioners, practices, and hospitals from advertising their prices for procedures, medications, and devices. It is impossible to have a free market without price transparency. Hospitals and private medical practices are not forced to COMPETE with one another because prices for services & goods in health care are "hidden." This contributes to price gouging and fixing. If we allow hospitals and medical practices to advertise their prices for services & goods, prices would drop drastically.

3. NO TORT REFORM: Ambulance chasing, sue happy lawyers, exploit common medical mistakes, and more often than not just plain POOR OUTCOMES. Medicine is an art, not a science. Bad things happen, people die, people are maimed, it is a reality of life. People need someone to blame. Very rarely is outright medical malpractice the reason for a persons death or permanent life altering condition. When that is actually the case, the patient or their families ought to be compensated, but at reasonable and CAPPED amounts of money.


3A. DEFENSIVE MEDICINE: Doctors are forced to order expensive tests needlessly in an effort to CYA (Cover Your Ass). What this means is that every patient who comes into the ER complaining of a headache, is going to get a Head CT at a cost of $3,000.00. Without aggressive tort reform, doctors will be forced to practice medicine based on the threat of lawsuits, and not based on their best judgment and the probability that the patient has a migraine over a brain aneurysm. Medicine is a field of probabilities not possibilities.

4. HEALTH INSURANCE IS TOO COMPREHENSIVE: Simply put, health insurance in its current form is too comprehensive and is not actually insurance at all. Insurance is a measure of risk, that a catastrophic event or accident will occur. Insurance is typically purchased to protect a person from a large financially liability in the event of an accident or catastrophic event. This means that health insurance SHOULD cover ONLY a.)Emergency room visits, b.) Surgeries, c.)Expensive tests and imaging when they are medically necessary. Routine doctors office visits are not an area that health insurance should be paying for. Doctors office visits are essentially "routine maintenance" or preventative maintenance. Because insurance companies have made co-pays so low, insured's view the service as essentially "free" and therefore have no INCENTIVE not to use the service every time they have a hang nail, runny nose, or sore throat.

4A. REDUCING HEALTH INSURANCE COSTS: If we limit what we expect health insurance companies to cover, we will significantly reduce yearly premiums and their rises in cost. We can establish tax free health savings accounts to use for our routine medical visits to primary care physicians.

4B. LOWERING COSTS= HEALTH INSURANCE AFFORDABLE TO A LARGER SECTOR OF THE POPULATION: By implementing the aforementioned steps, we are able to significantly lower premiums and the cost to obtain a health insurance policy, which equals more insurable individuals.

5. ALLOW DOCTORS TO NEGOTIATE CASH RATES FOR PATIENTS: We have taken the power away from doctors to negotiate cash rates for their patients. If they do so, they open themselves up to being paid even LOWER reimbursement rates by MCARE/MCAID.




By implementing free market solutions to health care, we allow more people to be insured. This means that doctors can once again provide charity care to patients who are simply unable to pay. Presently we have made it far too expensive to absorb the uninsured via charity care because of the many factors which contribute to the rising costs of health care. It is important to understand however, that the many rising costs of health care are DUE to government interference and regulation into the market of health care. It is ridiculous to think that government is now also the solution to all of the problems that they themselves have created.


No one has a RIGHT to the labor, or fruits of labor of other people. We as American's, have no "social responsibility" to other Americans. We do however, have the OPTION to donate our income to other American's for health care. We should not however, be coerced (via the threat of violence) to have money from our income stolen in order to provide health care for our fellow Americans. It is antithetical to the entire essence and principles by which our country was founded on. It is time that we start following the document the founding fathers of this country crafted for us, for it is the deviation from this document that has led to the majority of the problems we face today. [B][SIZE="3"]It is important that we as Americans, start to heavily reconsider WHAT THE ROLE OF GOVERNMENT OUGHT TO BE. We should be true Americans, and look to OURSELVES for the answers to OUR problems. We ought not look to large over arching Federal BUREAUCRACIES as the answer to our questions.

Bureaucrats in Washington are not the answer to our problems. Bureaucrats do not have the intelligence or the knowledge to make complicated decisions. I encourage everyone to get involved at the local and state levels. You know what is best for you and the people in your community. You know what is best for you and the people in your STATE! Bureaucrats in Washington do not know whats best for you and your citizens in your state. Become involved locally and at the state level, that was the intended purpose of our Republic! It is time that we reject statism, and support FEDERALISM!

[novastepp]

Wonder what the care outcomes will look like when physicians take an ENORMOUS pay cut. That is going to make for some interesting statistical analysis and research.

[JDawg1536]

Wonder what the care outcomes will look like when physicians take an ENORMOUS pay cut. That is going to make for some interesting statistical analysis and research.

How big a pay cut are they going to take?

[Kratos]

How big a pay cut are they going to take?

If the gvmt controls all insurance?
substantial
50% of doctors now don't take medicaid because they loose money on it
it's kinda like the priceline commercial...you've got an empty room 65 dollars is better than no dollars.
But doctors who are booked are not interested...the payments don't even cover their overhead.
Hospitals in lower income areas in Mass are sueing the state because with a similar progam to obama care the newly covered population is bankrupting them because of reimbursements that don't cover the cost of care.

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/157885.php
http://www.boston.com/business/healt...nt_shortfalls/

[JDawg1536]

If the gvmt controls all insurance?
substantial
50% of doctors now don't take medicaid because they loose money on it
it's kinda like the priceline commercial...you've got an empty room 65 dollars is better than no dollars.
But doctors who are booked are not interested...the payments don't even cover their overhead.
Hospitals in lower income areas in Mass are sueing the state because with a similar progam to obama care the newly covered population is bankrupting them because of reimbursements that don't cover the cost of care.

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/157885.php
http://www.boston.com/business/healt...nt_shortfalls/

Then why is it that so many doctors are in favor of a universal health care system? I spoke with a doctor a couple weeks ago and she said that 75% of doctors were for it, including her. I don't know how accurate that is since I've read 25%, 50%, 75% 13%, etc....


I'm not saying you or anyone else is right or wrong.... I'm just curious.

[Kratos]

Then why is it that so many doctors are in favor of a universal health care system? I spoke with a doctor a couple weeks ago and she said that 75% of doctors were for it, including her. I don't know how accurate that is since I've read 25%, 50%, 75% 13%, etc....


I'm not saying you or anyone else is right or wrong.... I'm just curious.

Many physicians, are quite reasonably frustrated by the cost and hassle of dealing with billing multiple insurance companies-not to mention the time lost appealing seemingly arbitrary denials. A single payer-a government agency at minimum eliminate the duplication of effort associated with signing on and maintaining relationships with multiple private insurance companies. It would standardize billing processes and coverage rules and perhaps even establish clearly defined rules to reduce the frequency of apparently arbitrary "downcoding" and denials of payment. In recent years doctors have become so fed up, they are looking for alternatives.

The AMA sees far enough down the line that they oppose single payer.
However they endorse the current bill because they were bribed with medicare money.

if you lose money seeing someone, then think how much they will lose seeing thousands of them
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/16/he...6medicaid.html

[Hazard]

Then why is it that so many doctors are in favor of a universal health care system? I spoke with a doctor a couple weeks ago and she said that 75% of doctors were for it, including her. I don't know how accurate that is since I've read 25%, 50%, 75% 13%, etc....


I'm not saying you or anyone else is right or wrong.... I'm just curious.

I am in the medical field and speak with doctors daily..... I've heard 2 doctors say they will retire once the bill takes effect. I've heard another 2 bitch about the bill passing..... and another doctor complained about the new bill but then bashed bush and the war... etc.....

Now granted I see between 10-25 doctors a week and these certainly don't represent all doctors..... these were just some comments recently made to me.....

~Haz~

[Kratos]

btw warren buffet compared the urgency of passing a bailout with American's decision to go to war after Pearl Harbor was attacked in 1941.

then tells CNBC he's making his surprise $5 billion investment in Goldman Sachs because "the price was right, the terms were right, and the people were right."

made 10 billion dollars off his investment. Off selling the american people on a bailout package.

I didn't hear his dried up old lips complain about the bailout going to exec compensation


what kinda a-hole keeps his stock trading at 100k and refuses to split...oh yeah, I'm sure he cares about the average guy. Cause everybody has a spare 100k to invest in 1 share.

"I’ll tell you why I like the cigarette business. It costs a penny to make. Sell it for a dollar. It’s addictive. And there’s fantastic brand loyalty"
in 2007 he dragged his rotten dried up asshole to testify before the senate to preserve the estate tax...he makes money from setting up trusts and shelters, and many of the businesses he owns were sold to pay inheritence tax. Not to mention the small detail that as all of his holdings are in trusts or other tax exempt vehicles




I hope his private jet crashes and he breaks both his legs and he has to chew them off to escape from his seat and he bleeds out while a bear eats his old rotten asshole.

[Mooseman33]

btw warren buffet compared the urgency of passing a bailout with American's decision to go to war after Pearl Harbor was attacked in 1941.

then tells CNBC he's making his surprise $5 billion investment in Goldman Sachs because "the price was right, the terms were right, and the people were right."

made 10 billion dollars off his investment. Off selling the american people on a bailout package.

I didn't hear his dried up old lips complain about the bailout going to exec compensation


what kinda a-hole keeps his stock trading at 100k and refuses to split...oh yeah, I'm sure he cares about the average guy. Cause everybody has a spare 100k to invest in 1 share.

"I’ll tell you why I like the cigarette business. It costs a penny to make. Sell it for a dollar. It’s addictive. And there’s fantastic brand loyalty"
in 2007 he dragged his rotten dried up asshole to testify before the senate to preserve the estate tax...he makes money from setting up trusts and shelters, and many of the businesses he owns were sold to pay inheritence tax. Not to mention the small detail that as all of his holdings are in trusts or other tax exempt vehicles




I hope his private jet crashes and he breaks both his legs and he has to chew them off to escape from his seat and he bleeds out while a bear eats his old rotten asshole.

that could be the funniest thing i have read in a while....kratos, u kill me man...
keep on doing it brother....

[Kratos]

\As it stands, a reduction in Medicare payment rates can induce physicians to drop Medicare patients and try to make their living from a higher percentage of (or even only) privately insured patients. This would inevitably result in reduced access to care for Medicare patients-and thus political pressure from those patients for increased Medicare payments to improve access.

Right offered take it or leave it rates from a health plan that sets payment rates too low will find that many physicians choose to "leave it." When enough physicians leave, patients have difficulty obtaining access to care and eventually leave the health plan.

When you have a single payer your choice is take it or be out of business tomorrow even if that means loosing money this year you'll be compelled to take the deal and try to cut expenses, see more patients, avoid buying new useful stuff for the offfice ect.

If you look at the payments for canada or britian doctors make about 30 percent less. Often face shortages and import a larger percentage of doctors with less people willing to go to medical school. Doctors can come from china, the middle east, places where the standard pay is much lower.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/20...hsstaff.health

[Kratos]

Mayo Clinic Bridles at Medicare Payments
By Ken Terry | Jan 4, 2010

ShareMyBNETEmailDiggFacebookTwitterGoogleDelicious StumbleUponNewsvineLinkedInMy YahooTechnoratiRedditPrintRecommend2The Mayo Clinic, which has been praised by President Obama as an exemplar for the healthcare industry, will no longer accept new Medicare patients at a primary-care clinic in Glendale, AZ, a Phoenix suburb. While this office serves only a small portion of Mayo’s 526,000 patients in Minnesota, Arizona, and Florida, the organization says that the Glendale clinic is part of a 2-year pilot that will determine whether Mayo continues taking care of Medicare patients at other facilities. Meanwhile, the 3,000 Medicare patients who see family doctors at the Glendale office will have to pay nearly $2,000 a year out of pocket if they want to stay with their physicians.

Mayo is going in this direction because it lost $840 million last year on Medicare. Its Arizona hospital and four primary-care clinics lost $120 million. Nationwide, physicians earn about 20 percent less from Medicare than they do from private payers, but there’s no evidence that most are losing money on Medicare. In a Bloomberg article, Dr. Robert Berenson of the Urban Institute is quoted as saying that some primary-care physicians can afford to do without Medicare “because there is an unlimited demand for their services.” In areas where private health plans pay much more, Medicare looks like a poor payer, he adds.

Nevertheless, the Mayo experiment highlights the grim realities facing Medicare. Even at the current payment rates, the payroll-tax-funded Medicare Trust Fund, which covers inpatient care, is expected to go bankrupt in 2017. General tax revenues and beneficiary premiums guarantee the solvency of Medicare Part B, the outpatient program, but neither higher taxes nor the current rise in premiums is popular. Cutting doctors’ fees is not politically acceptable, either. To keep those fees stable for the next decade, the House recently passed a supplemental spending bill of nearly $200 billion, and the Senate is expected to follow suit, in return for the AMA’s support of its reform bill.

Ironically, the original version of the public option required that providers accept Medicare-level fees for people under 65. The idea was to lower insurance costs by paying providers below market. Of course, this would have never worked, because doctors and hospitals would have refused to accept such low fees, unless they had to do so as a condition of participating in Medicare. Even then, some might have balked because they were already losing money on the government program for seniors. It’s a moot point today, of course: There’s no chance of Congress adopting any kind of public option as part of reform legislation.

Several months ago, Mayo Clinic CEO Denis Cortese opposed having providers paid Medicare-level fees in a public plan. However, he proposed that Medicare speed its development of a value-based purchasing model. In a New England Journal of Medicine article, Cortese and coauthor Jeffrey Korsmo said, “We believe that Congress should set a 3-year deadline for creating and implementing new Medicare payment methods.”

The Mayo executives said that payments to both hospitals and physicians should be based on performance, including metrics for “outcomes, safety and service.” The value measures, they said, could be applied to Medicare’s “diagnosis-related group payments, physician fees, payment updates, and other payment formulas, including those for bundled payments.” Moreover, they said, providers should join together into larger business units.

It all sounds good to me, but it’s unlikely to happen as fast as Cortese wanted. Consequently, more providers will likely drop Medicare in coming years, despite reform.

[Flagg]

The House of Representatives must vote again on the US healthcare bill after Republicans find procedural "violations".

The landmark US healthcare reform bill must be sent back to the House of Representatives for approval after two issues were raised by Republicans.

During an all-night voting session, two points relating to student loans were found to violate Senate procedure, said an aide to the Senate majority leader.

They were described as "relatively minor provisions".

They will have to be deleted, approved by the Senate and then sent back to the House for approval.

President Barack Obama has already signed the bill into law.

The bill was passed by 219 votes to 212 on Sunday, with no Republican backing.

It extends coverage to 32 million more Americans, and marks the biggest change to the US healthcare system in decades.

On Wednesday, Senate Republicans had submitted 30 amendments - which had all been rejected by Democrats during the marathon voting session.

However, Senate Parliamentarian Alan Frumin upheld two Republican challenges on points of order under budget reconciliation rules, Senate Democratic aides said.

Jim Manley, spokesman for the Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, said: "After hours of trying to find a way to block this, they (Republicans) found two relatively minor provisions that are violations of Senate procedure which means we're going to have to send it back to the House."

He added that he was "confident that the House will be able to deal with these and pass the legislation".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8586492.stm

[Kratos]

70 percent of specialty doctors oppose health-care reform proposals
19. August 2009 21:04


The American Society of Medical Doctors (ASMD) today released a nationwide, nonpartisan poll* of physicians showing that:

•70 percent of specialty doctors oppose current Congressional and White House proposals for health-care reform;
•66 percent believe that a government-run health insurance plan would restrict doctors' ability to give the best advice and offer the best care possible to their patients; and
•More than 60 percent would not accept new patients with government insurance (including 27% who would not accept any patients on the new government plan).
Chairman of the ASMD, Alfred O. Bonati, M.D., said that, "As a physician, the results of this poll are not surprising to me. Any doctor who has ever dealt with Medicare knows that government coverage severely limits our abilities to deliver care that best fits the needs of the patient and the patient's family. We know that government coverage does not allow for flexibility, creativity, or, sometimes, even compassion."

"I hope this research will serve as a wake-up call to policy makers," Bonati said. "Doctors are against the creation of government-run health insurance and many of us will not accept new patients with that type of coverage."

ASMD spokeswoman, Holly Pitt Young, noted that, "When it comes to our health, we listen to our doctors. Now it's time for Congress to do the same." Pitt Young also highlighted the political orientation of the poll's participants. "More than 60 percent of the doctors in this poll described themselves as moderate, somewhat liberal or very liberal. When a group like that agrees with conservatives, it seems that something awfully important is being said."

*The poll was conducted on August 7th, 2009, by WRS Opinion Research on behalf of the ASMD. Detailed results can be found at www.theasmd.org.

[Kratos]

A third of US doctors will stop practicing medicine if Obamacare passes
Contrary to the rosy images that President Obama has staged with doctors in white lab coats surrounding the Presidential Teleprompter, and the lies he has told about having the support of the medical profession, nearly one third of US doctors are preparing to leave their medical practices if Obamacare passes.

A survey by the New England Journal of Medicine cites fears of increased patient loads and decreased pay, along with already having large debt loads, as reasons why they would not recommend the medical profession to others and would consider leaving if Obamacare passes. Nearly 50% of primary care physicians are considering leaving or feel they will be forced out of their medical practices if Obamacare is passed.

CNS News reports on the New England Journal of Medicine Survey:

More than 29 percent (29.2) percent of the nearly 1,200 doctors who responded to the survey said they would quit the profession or retire early if health reform legislation becomes law. If a public option were included in the legislation, as several liberal Senators have indicated they would like, the number would jump to 45.7 percent.

The medical journal published the results in its March and April edition, saying: “While a sudden loss of half of the nations physicians seems unlikely, a very dramatic decrease in the physician workforce could become a reality as an unexpected side effect of health reform.”

Kevin Perpetua, managing partner for the Medicus Firm, reported that a reform bill could be “the final straw” in an already financially precarious industry.

“Many physicians feel that they cannot continue to practice if patient loads increase while pay decreases,” Perpetua said in the study. “The overwhelming prediction from physicians is that health reform, if implemented inappropriately, could create a detrimental combination of circumstances, and result in an environment in which it is not possible for most physicians to continue practicing medicine.”

“With an average debt of $140,000, and many graduates approaching a quarter of a million dollars in school loans, being a doctor is becoming less and less feasible,” Perpetua said. “Health-care reform and increasing government control of medicine may be the final straw that causes the physician workforce to break down.”

The survey shows that many doctors already find their situations difficult:

– 36 percent said that they would not recommend medicine as a profession to others, regardless of whether health-care reform passes;
– another 27 percent would still recommend medicine as a career, but not if the current reform proposal passes.

In total, 63 percent of doctors would not recommend the profession after health-care reform passes. Just 12 percent do not recommend becoming a physician now but think they would if current reform proposals pass.

Primary-care physicians, those who work in the critical fields of family and internal medicine, not only feel that they would want to quit but that they might be cast out of medicine. 46.3 percent of those physicians said that they would either want to leave medicine or that they would be “forced out” by the changes to the system.

http://www.liberalwhoppers.com/2010/...macare-passes/

[Kratos]

45% Of Doctors Would Consider Quitting If Congress Passes Health Care Overhaul
By TERRY JONES, INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
Posted 09/15/2009 07:09 PM ET




Two of every three practicing physicians oppose the medical overhaul plan under consideration in Washington, and hundreds of thousands would think about shutting down their practices or retiring early if it were adopted, a new IBD/TIPP Poll has found.

The poll contradicts the claims of not only the White House, but also doctors' own lobby — the powerful American Medical Association — both of which suggest the medical profession is behind the proposed overhaul.

It also calls into question whether an overhaul is even doable; 72% of the doctors polled disagree with the administration's claim that the government can cover 47 million more people with better-quality care at lower cost.

The IBD/TIPP Poll was conducted by mail the past two weeks, with 1,376 practicing physicians chosen randomly throughout the country taking part. Responses are still coming in, and doctors' positions on related topics — including the impact of an overhaul on senior care, medical school applications and drug development — will be covered later in this series.

Major findings included:

• Two-thirds, or 65%, of doctors say they oppose the proposed government expansion plan. This contradicts the administration's claims that doctors are part of an "unprecedented coalition" supporting a medical overhaul.

It also differs with findings of a poll released Monday by National Public Radio that suggests a "majority of physicians want public and private insurance options," and clashes with media reports such as Tuesday's front-page story in the Los Angeles Times with the headline "Doctors Go For Obama's Reform."

Nowhere in the Times story does it say doctors as a whole back the overhaul. It says only that the AMA — the "association representing the nation's physicians" and what "many still regard as the country's premier lobbying force" — is "lobbying and advertising to win public support for President Obama's sweeping plan."

The AMA, in fact, represents approximately 18% of physicians and has been hit with a number of defections by members opposed to the AMA's support of Democrats' proposed health care overhaul.

• Four of nine doctors, or 45%, said they "would consider leaving their practice or taking an early retirement" if Congress passes the plan the Democratic majority and White House have in mind.

More than 800,000 doctors were practicing in 2006, the government says. Projecting the poll's finding onto that population, 360,000 doctors would consider quitting.
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnal...aspx?id=506199

[ultra40]

Are you serious? I dont know ONE Dr. That wanted universal healthcare! My dad is a Doctor, I'm going to medschool in the fall, our family is full or doctors, and we are obviously very close to Dr.'s of all fields and NONE of them are in favor of universal healthcare. Everybody knows the quality of the Dr./Patient relationship will go to hell bc the doc will be so rushed to see more patients, the quality of the docs will become much worse because the demand will increase and medschool req's will decrease so the field wont be nearly as competitive.

[Kratos]

Are you serious? I dont know ONE Dr. That wanted universal healthcare! My dad is a Doctor, I'm going to medschool in the fall, our family is full or doctors, and we are obviously very close to Dr.'s of all fields and NONE of them are in favor of universal healthcare. Everybody knows the quality of the Dr./Patient relationship will go to hell bc the doc will be so rushed to see more patients, the quality of the docs will become much worse because the demand will increase and medschool req's will decrease so the field wont be nearly as competitive.

no doubt...very few want universal health care

it's cleaver manipulation of the numbers to make it sound like what they're doing has support of doctors.

Doctors are OK with a public option (not realizing a public option is likely to become the only option)
they're ok with more people having insurance...more people with insurance means more people trying to see them...meaning they can give more poor paying insurance companies the middle finger.

doctors didn't loose a whole lot yet with this bill
it doesn't reform health care at all, it adds more people to the system and does nothing to control costs.
what it does is set the stage for trouble on the horizon
if I was an older doc, I wouldn't sweat it
for you looking at getting into medicine now...the pain will be coming in 10 years max for docs.

[thegodfather]

I just want to comment for a moment on physician salaries, as they are often easy targets for people who are crying "greedy doctors."

I am speaking from personal experience, as someone who is going through the process right now of becoming a physician. It takes an absolute minimum of 8 years (in my case 9, originally having a non-science background) to just earn the credentials of MD/DO/DMD/DPM. At this point, you are useless, you are not board certified in anything, and you must complete a recognized and accredited residency program in some specialty area. So at this point, you are in your late twenties (26-28), and you begin a job as a resident in your chosen specialty. The salary during this time is $40,000-$49,000/year. All residencies are at least 4 years long, with the exception of family/internal med. Surgical residencies are 5-7 years. The pay does not change during those times, and residents have to work extremely long hours, to the point that legislation had to be enacted "limiting" their work weeks to 80 hours, however there are ways around this. They will likely be on Q3 call for their entire residency (being on call every 3rd night, you must be able to get to the hospital within 15 minutes at all time, during this time period). The "AVERAGE" debt load is $140,000, however the reality is that it will be somewhere around $200,000 and maybe even more depending on what undergrad institution you attended. Additionally, you have no chance in hell of paying down your loans during residency, because you are making $40,000 per year, hardly enough for you to sustain yourself on, when you're awake that is.

The point of all that bitching and moaning? We are giving up a lot more than just sleep during those years. We're not able to really "start our lives" until we are about 30 years old. We have no chance of buying a home for our family during residency, and given that our student loans will likely cost us $1,500/MONTH. Doctors are paid the numbers they are because they travel a long and arduous road to get to where they are. On top of that, many of them have skills that only a few THOUSAND people in the entire country possess. They are one of the most highly skilled 'service' workers in our country, and they perform a job which puts them at risk of being sued for every dime they have, every single day. If you people make a mistake at your job, you get yelled at, and something might not get done on time. If a doctor makes a mistake at his job, some persons life is changed forever, and at the worst that person DIES. So the next time wants to bitch about a surgeon who makes $600,000 per year, who is on call every 4th night, and comes into the hospital at 3am on a semi-frequent basis to do emergency surgeries, they can eat shit. Because there are plenty of people on Wall Street and in the private sector who are stock brokers and salesmen that make a hell of a lot more than most physicians, and they do little more than talk shit and shuffle papers around.

[novastepp]

I just want to comment for a moment on physician salaries, as they are often easy targets for people who are crying "greedy doctors."

I am speaking from personal experience, as someone who is going through the process right now of becoming a physician. It takes an absolute minimum of 8 years (in my case 9, originally having a non-science background) to just earn the credentials of MD/DO/DMD/DPM. At this point, you are useless, you are not board certified in anything, and you must complete a recognized and accredited residency program in some specialty area. So at this point, you are in your late twenties (26-28), and you begin a job as a resident in your chosen specialty. The salary during this time is $40,000-$49,000/year. All residencies are at least 4 years long, with the exception of family/internal med. Surgical residencies are 5-7 years. The pay does not change during those times, and residents have to work extremely long hours, to the point that legislation had to be enacted "limiting" their work weeks to 80 hours, however there are ways around this. They will likely be on Q3 call for their entire residency (being on call every 3rd night, you must be able to get to the hospital within 15 minutes at all time, during this time period). The "AVERAGE" debt load is $140,000, however the reality is that it will be somewhere around $200,000 and maybe even more depending on what undergrad institution you attended. Additionally, you have no chance in hell of paying down your loans during residency, because you are making $40,000 per year, hardly enough for you to sustain yourself on, when you're awake that is.

The point of all that bitching and moaning? We are giving up a lot more than just sleep during those years. We're not able to really "start our lives" until we are about 30 years old. We have no chance of buying a home for our family during residency, and given that our student loans will likely cost us $1,500/MONTH. Doctors are paid the numbers they are because they travel a long and arduous road to get to where they are. On top of that, many of them have skills that only a few THOUSAND people in the entire country possess. They are one of the most highly skilled 'service' workers in our country, and they perform a job which puts them at risk of being sued for every dime they have, every single day. If you people make a mistake at your job, you get yelled at, and something might not get done on time. If a doctor makes a mistake at his job, some persons life is changed forever, and at the worst that person DIES. So the next time wants to bitch about a surgeon who makes $600,000 per year, who is on call every 4th night, and comes into the hospital at 3am on a semi-frequent basis to do emergency surgeries, they can eat shit. Because there are plenty of people on Wall Street and in the private sector who are stock brokers and salesmen that make a hell of a lot more than most physicians, and they do little more than talk shit and shuffle papers around.

I am currently a PhD student in the field of Health Informatics and am a research fellow at the school of medicine at my university. I interact with physicians and potential physicians daily. There is an extremely large burden financially and physically on potential MD's as well as PhD's.

Yet now we are assuming that the people who literally drive the health care field have no say. This will create more problems.

The point is that the whole health care system needs to make changes yet the health care field as a whole is the only industry who thinks it can make one change and all will restore itself.

The fact is that many industries have made gradual changes over the years and in the context of health care reform that the health care field lags significantly behind other industries. The fact is, is that this change takes time, yet many of the proposed changes are too abrupt and dramatic to allow for acceptance and movement toward large changes.

Is that because the health field was reluctant to make smaller changes in the past? -Maybe. Yet now we are at a crossroads in which private payors, health care providers and associated entities need changes to stay afloat. So the situation basically informs itself in that the changes are due to the lack of changes and this will continue until a medium can be met. Many would agree that changes need to be made, but stating that does not create change. Action must be taken to start the process and consistent ongoing research should be done, with input from all parties, as to what the next step should be.

We seem to be learning from our actions instead of learning about them.

[Kratos]

Take those polls with a grain of salt though...doctors bitch a lot
and always talk about it not being worth it and blah blah blah
and they go on bitching for 20 years and things get a little tougher and they bitch a little more. At the end of the day, if they had an easier way to make a living they'd do it, so it can't be quite that bad.

Doctors want to expand coverage...yes
but they don't want the gvmt to be the only option
only because they think more people covered means more money
the New England Journal of Medicine puts single payer at 28 percent support

[Kratos]

Forget Doctors’ Support for the Health Care Bill
Posted March 17th, 2010 at 5:00pm in Health Care with 12 comments Print This Post

Earlier this month, President Obama held a press conference at the White House with white coated physicians in his push for a government overhaul of the nation’s health care system. Though the presence of physicians in support of the Democrats’ plans for health care “reform” created the illusion that the medical profession is in strong support of the legislation, it remained just that—an illusion. Recent reports show that the health care legislation does not have the broad support among physicians.

A poll by The Medicus Firm posted in the New England Journal of Medicine’s CareerCenter shows that, on virtually every count, physicians understand and don’t like the congressional legislation. 62.7 percent of physicians feel that health reform is needed but should be implemented in a more targeted, gradual way; just the opposite of the sweeping overhaul embodied in the massive congressional legislation. Indeed, 46.3 percent of primary care physicians feel that “the passing of health reform will either force them out of medicine or make them want to leave medicine.”
On March 10th, 15 state and national medical specialty organizations representing 85,000 physicians across the nation wrote a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Minority Leader John Boehner voicing their opposition to the Senate bill (H.R. 3590), which the House is expected to vote on later this week. Liberals in and out of Congress, meanwhile, have been insisting that their legislative handiwork has enjoyed the support of the ten largest doctor organizations in the country.

Physician opposition is understandable. Heritage economist Robert Book describes how, against the better interests of physicians and their patients, Americans may end up with government-run health care even without the public option

Both the Senate and House bills give unprecedented levels of control to federal bureaucrats to pre-empt patient choice and block competitive innovation. The House bill would create a new federal office — a “Health Choices Commissioner” — to make health choices for the entire nation, specifying precisely what services health plans must cover, may cover, and (perhaps) must not cover. The Senate bill would direct the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) to define precisely the services that health plans must cover.

Doctors are clearly opposed to congressional health legislation. There is a better way. If Congress were to pursue patient-centered health care reform, doctors could rest assured that their patients, their practices, and their profession remained in good hands—their own.
http://blog.heritage.org/2010/03/17/...lth-care-bill/

[Nicotine]

canada, france, britain/uk have GOOD health care systems....

and they arn't in the shitter.

how about the usa gets their ego outta their ass, and stop spending 1 TRILLION++ a yr on an army, policing the middle east that don't want them there in the first place.

1 trillion would do WONDERS for starvation, homelessness, health care.

screw the army, take care of your own first - before spending 1 trillion policing people that hate you anyway.

[Kratos]

canada, france, britain/uk have GOOD health care systems....

and they arn't in the shitter.

how about the usa gets their ego outta their ass, and stop spending 1 TRILLION++ a yr on an army, policing the middle east that don't want them there in the first place.

1 trillion would do WONDERS for starvation, homelessness, health care.

screw the army, take care of your own first - before spending 1 trillion policing people that hate you anyway.

This common line of thinking holds no water. Military defense as a percentage of GDP is less then 4 percent.

Healthcare is 14 percent or higher.

The two are not interchangable.

Military spending can not be eliminated although it may be too high, and it is not 1 trillion. And don't think the US defense budget doesn't help Canada or Europe.
http://www.forces.gc.ca/site/news-no...?cat=00&id=836