Those "Poor" Doctors

[Mini 14]

My father was a neurosurgeon. My brother is a neurosurgeon.

How much is it worth to you to have a guy save your life, by digging around in your head, cauterizing this, cutting that, removing that blob, sewing this thingy to that thingy, stitching you up, and you still are able to recognize, and USE a fork, and know that pants go on your legs and hats go on your head?

Their annual malpractice premiums cost more than your house. Let that soak in......they buy the equivalent of your house, and pay it off, EVERY YEAR< just to make a living.

And each are/were (my father has passed) considered to be the absolute best risk their insurance providers could take, so their premiums were the lowest that were offered.

The first $500,000 a surgeon makes each year goes to pay his overhead (insurance and office staff. For highly specialized surgeons like neuro and cardio, make it $750,000). It doesn't even scratch the surface of what they invested, and it doesn't put an ounce of food on the table.

With tort reform, an operation my brother currently charges $48,000 for would fall to about $25,000.

 

[daveman]

We are facing a shortage of doctors?
Well no shit Sherlock.
If you were a doctor would you do family care or disease care when the model that the AMA, hospitals, dope peddlers and everyone else associated with American "health care" rewards disease care specialists with 60% of ALL health care dollars spent in the Us to treat only 4 % of the population, which would you choose?
And guess where there is the shortage of doctors Moe?
It ain't in the disease care sector. Doctors CHOOSE not to practice family care because the "health care" sector for that in this country has 40% of all of the remaining dollars left to treat 96% of the population.
Get it now?

So what's your solution? Order people to go into family practice?

 

[Gadawg73]

You are right on it.
However, what does that have to do with doctors and the medical community NOW, and for the last 30 years, lobbying for and receiving full support for their disease care model industry which now compromises over 60% of all health care dollars spent on 4% of the population?
BigMed is the problem and their lobby needs to be brought under control. YOU and I are the customer and that has long been forgotten and ignored by who?
DOCTORS.

Physicians, especially clinicians, have no say over what the pharmaceutical companies do. You think a physician gets a kick-back for recommended a certain type of drug? Most of the doctors I deal with feel extremely frustrated and hampered by the fact that a lot of drugs aren't generic yet and covered by Medicaid and the "Wal Mart $4 drug List" is something that every single person carries in their pocket.

I am not sure what you are talking about "disease care model industry". If you are suggesting that the medical community has no interest in curing diseases in order to drum up profits, that's just absurd.

America should "heal thyself first'.

That means stop eating at fucking McDonalds and smoking a pack/day.

Physicians have no say about what BigPharma does? LOL.
You know nothing about politics. The medical lobby is as powerful or more powerful as the pharma lobby.
Guess why now over half of adults eat prescription dope daily and in 1960 it was 15%.
Viagra is on race cars dude. Doctors MARKET the expensive drugs and get kickbacks from the insurance companies to write the generic ones.

I am very surprised that you ignore the fact that 60% of ALL health care dollars are spent on 4% of the population. And over 90% of those dollars are for disease care.
And 8 out of 9 of those diseases are PREVENTABLE.
That is disease care and our model here is geared for that. That speciality area of medical practice is far more profitable than health care family practice.
Heart surgeries for 89 year old Americans, keeping my father hooked up to life support while I had to fight them for a week with a DNR order in place, his living will in my hand and my mother arguing with the hospital administration are all a part of the disease care operation at work. Dad wanted no life support, they gave it him with a DNR order on file and ran up over 80K in fees over a week period, almost all of it paid by Medicare.
Multiply that times millions and there you have it. Disease care for profit with a man dieing and wanting to go peacefully.
96% of the population receiving 40% of all health care dollars AND GROWING. You may believe that is a good health care model for society but it isn't.
The facts are also that 40% of the remaining health care dollars spent in the US go to treat the remaining 96% of the population.
And 8 out of the 9 diseases treated with that disease care model are preventable.
Cha ching.

 

[Gadawg73]

We are facing a shortage of doctors?
Well no shit Sherlock.
If you were a doctor would you do family care or disease care when the model that the AMA, hospitals, dope peddlers and everyone else associated with American "health care" rewards disease care specialists with 60% of ALL health care dollars spent in the Us to treat only 4 % of the population, which would you choose?
And guess where there is the shortage of doctors Moe?
It ain't in the disease care sector. Doctors CHOOSE not to practice family care because the "health care" sector for that in this country has 40% of all of the remaining dollars left to treat 96% of the population.
Get it now?

So what's your solution? Order people to go into family practice?

Who pays health care bills? Who is the customer?
Insurance companies and government.
You and I are not under this model.
THAT is the problem. Unless we return to being the customer again nothing changes.

 

[editec]

Here's a thought...free education to those who are qualified to be MDs.

Good idea?

the American Medical Association won't be on board for that, I think.

If you don't limit the number of doctors, then doctors might be poor LIKE THEY USED TO BE before the AMA (and third party HC insurance companies) took over control of that profession.

I find it odd that people who hate unions, seldom have any problem with organizations like the AMA.

I have to assume that those union hating people really haven't given the AMA much thought.

Who pays for this "free" education?

We all do. (hell we're paying for it now, anyway only in the form of medical expenses practically nobody can really afford)

Free education ought not to be limited to merely the medical community, of course.

But seriously, we cannot continue to demand that our workforce get itself better and better educated and come out of that education so saddled with debts that they cannot make it.

It's time to rethink the social contract, amigo.

The one we have isn't really working very well, anymore.

 

[daveman]

We are facing a shortage of doctors?
Well no shit Sherlock.
If you were a doctor would you do family care or disease care when the model that the AMA, hospitals, dope peddlers and everyone else associated with American "health care" rewards disease care specialists with 60% of ALL health care dollars spent in the Us to treat only 4 % of the population, which would you choose?
And guess where there is the shortage of doctors Moe?
It ain't in the disease care sector. Doctors CHOOSE not to practice family care because the "health care" sector for that in this country has 40% of all of the remaining dollars left to treat 96% of the population.
Get it now?

So what's your solution? Order people to go into family practice?

Who pays health care bills? Who is the customer?
Insurance companies and government.
You and I are not under this model.
THAT is the problem. Unless we return to being the customer again nothing changes.

Is there anything keeping you from negotiating a cash price with your doctor?

 

[daveman]

Here's a thought...free education to those who are qualified to be MDs.

Good idea?

the American Medical Association won't be on board for that, I think.

If you don't limit the number of doctors, then doctors might be poor LIKE THEY USED TO BE before the AMA (and third party HC insurance companies) took over control of that profession.

I find it odd that people who hate unions, seldom have any problem with organizations like the AMA.

I have to assume that those union hating people really haven't given the AMA much thought.

Who pays for this "free" education?

We all do. (hell we're paying for it now, anyway only in the form of medical expenses practically nobody can really afford)

Free education ought not to be limited to merely the medical community, of course.

But seriously, we cannot continue to demand that our workforce get itself better and better educated and come out of that education so saddled with debts that they cannot make it.

It's time to rethink the social contract, amigo.

The one we have isn't really working very well, anymore.

TANSTAAFL.

 

[LordBrownTrout]

My father was a neurosurgeon. My brother is a neurosurgeon.

How much is it worth to you to have a guy save your life, by digging around in your head, cauterizing this, cutting that, removing that blob, sewing this thingy to that thingy, stitching you up, and you still are able to recognize, and USE a fork, and know that pants go on your legs and hats go on your head?

Their annual malpractice premiums cost more than your house. Let that soak in......they buy the equivalent of your house, and pay it off, EVERY YEAR< just to make a living.

And each are/were (my father has passed) considered to be the absolute best risk their insurance providers could take, so their premiums were the lowest that were offered.

The first $500,000 a surgeon makes each year goes to pay his overhead (insurance and office staff. For highly specialized surgeons like neuro and cardio, make it $750,000). It doesn't even scratch the surface of what they invested, and it doesn't put an ounce of food on the table.

With tort reform, an operation my brother currently charges $48,000 for would fall to about $25,000.

Not to mention, I bet they both spent about 16 to 20 years of their life devoting themselves to this. They deserve every penny they make.

 

[Gadawg73]

So what's your solution? Order people to go into family practice?

Who pays health care bills? Who is the customer?
Insurance companies and government.
You and I are not under this model.
THAT is the problem. Unless we return to being the customer again nothing changes.

Is there anything keeping you from negotiating a cash price with your doctor?

Who pays cash for heart surgery?
I carry insurance and pay 12K a year for it. They determine the payment structure, not me. Who in their right mind would pay $176 for a 2 minute doctor visit for a runny nose?
You telling me a doctor would negotiate their fee down to $40 which is over priced at that?
And you do know that the insurance companies only pay about $40-75 for that $176 visit? They do negotiate but have thousands of claims to do so on. You believe a doctor would come down that low on my one claim? What leverage do I have? I own 3 businesses, been there and tried that dozens of times. Doesn't work.
Does your auto insurance pay for oil changes and maintenance? Does your home owners pay for new carpet and new HVAC? That is the problem.
I do not go to doctors unless there is something major wrong with me. My self employed policy carries a 5K deductible. A $500 deductible for my policy, with all of us very healthy, would be 16K a year. I am 56 years old, take NO dope and am healthy.
Real world for the folks that do not know how self employed folks are ripped by the insurance industry.
The school bus driver has a better policy than I do and I HAVE to pay for hers and mine and everyone else in government.
But for the surgery on my shoulder and my son's knee operation, mostly paid for by the college except a tiny bit, we have NO negotiations.

 

[Gadawg73]

My father was a neurosurgeon. My brother is a neurosurgeon.

How much is it worth to you to have a guy save your life, by digging around in your head, cauterizing this, cutting that, removing that blob, sewing this thingy to that thingy, stitching you up, and you still are able to recognize, and USE a fork, and know that pants go on your legs and hats go on your head?

Their annual malpractice premiums cost more than your house. Let that soak in......they buy the equivalent of your house, and pay it off, EVERY YEAR< just to make a living.

And each are/were (my father has passed) considered to be the absolute best risk their insurance providers could take, so their premiums were the lowest that were offered.

The first $500,000 a surgeon makes each year goes to pay his overhead (insurance and office staff. For highly specialized surgeons like neuro and cardio, make it $750,000). It doesn't even scratch the surface of what they invested, and it doesn't put an ounce of food on the table.

With tort reform, an operation my brother currently charges $48,000 for would fall to about $25,000.

Not to mention, I bet they both spent about 16 to 20 years of their life devoting themselves to this. They deserve every penny they make.

Hey now, why stop at doctors? Great idea!
Why not just eliminate the jury system all together so folks can make more $ and lower their overhead?
Everything we have and eat is brought to us by tractor trailer. How about tort reform there also where no one can collect anymore than 250K noneconomic damages when a truck runs into them and are negligent and it kills them?
And how about tort reform on lawyers? They wait too long to file your multi million dollar damages case and the statute of limitations has run. You gave them the case 14 months ago, they signed you up and you hired them to do the legal work yet they were negligent and forgot to file the case. What punitive conditions would you have with your tort reform?
NONE.
Tort reform is allowing negligence and setting a market price for it by statute instead of the jury system setting it which this country was FOUNDED ON.
You folks would do well under a dictatorship. After all, why have freedoms and the jury system when folks can make more $$?
Funny thing is my cousin is a surgeon and his overhead is less than 100K. His med/mal insurance is 30K a year in NY. No one doctor anywhere in America has a 750K overhead by himself. Your brother is part of a group and that is their overhead.

 

[daveman]

Who pays health care bills? Who is the customer?
Insurance companies and government.
You and I are not under this model.
THAT is the problem. Unless we return to being the customer again nothing changes.

Is there anything keeping you from negotiating a cash price with your doctor?

Who pays cash for heart surgery?
I carry insurance and pay 12K a year for it. They determine the payment structure, not me. Who in their right mind would pay $176 for a 2 minute doctor visit for a runny nose?
You telling me a doctor would negotiate their fee down to $40 which is over priced at that?
And you do know that the insurance companies only pay about $40-75 for that $176 visit? They do negotiate but have thousands of claims to do so on. You believe a doctor would come down that low on my one claim? What leverage do I have? I own 3 businesses, been there and tried that dozens of times. Doesn't work.
Does your auto insurance pay for oil changes and maintenance? Does your home owners pay for new carpet and new HVAC? That is the problem.
I do not go to doctors unless there is something major wrong with me. My self employed policy carries a 5K deductible. A $500 deductible for my policy, with all of us very healthy, would be 16K a year. I am 56 years old, take NO dope and am healthy.
Real world for the folks that do not know how self employed folks are ripped by the insurance industry.
The school bus driver has a better policy than I do and I HAVE to pay for hers and mine and everyone else in government.
But for the surgery on my shoulder and my son's knee operation, mostly paid for by the college except a tiny bit, we have NO negotiations.

I know a guy who pays cash for medical treatment. The docs always accept less than what the insurance would pay, because they don't have to go through the PITA claims process. A cash payment is gratefully accepted.

 

[boedicca]

Tort reform is allowing negligence and setting a market price for it by statute instead of the jury system setting it which this country was FOUNDED ON.

Bald. R. Dash.

Tort reform allows for recovery of economic damages (medical expenses, lost income, etc.) What it gets rid of is the Super Lotto aspect of getting obscene non-economic damages with large percentages going to tort lawyers.

Ask John Edwards how he became a multi-millionaire driving OB-GYNS out of his state.

 

[geauxtohell]

Here's a thought...free education to those who are qualified to be MDs.

Good idea?

the American Medical Association won't be on board for that, I think.

If you don't limit the number of doctors, then doctors might be poor LIKE THEY USED TO BE before the AMA (and third party HC insurance companies) took over control of that profession.

I find it odd that people who hate unions, seldom have any problem with organizations like the AMA.

I have to assume that those union hating people really haven't given the AMA much thought.

Who pays for this "free" education?

We all do. (hell we're paying for it now, anyway only in the form of medical expenses practically nobody can really afford)

Free education ought not to be limited to merely the medical community, of course.

But seriously, we cannot continue to demand that our workforce get itself better and better educated and come out of that education so saddled with debts that they cannot make it.

It's time to rethink the social contract, amigo.

The one we have isn't really working very well, anymore.

You guys aren't paying for anything. Medical school is financed by loans that are re-payed with interest.

Guess what happens if you default on your loans? They yank your license.

 

[geauxtohell]

Tort reform is allowing negligence and setting a market price for it by statute instead of the jury system setting it which this country was FOUNDED ON.

Bald. R. Dash.

Tort reform allows for recovery of economic damages (medical expenses, lost income, etc.) What it gets rid of is the Super Lotto aspect of getting obscene non-economic damages with large percentages going to tort lawyers.

Ask John Edwards how he became a multi-millionaire driving OB-GYNS out of his state.

33 states (if I remember) have capped non-economic damages at around $250K.

Yet, we are still talking about Tort Reform.

What does that tell you?

 

[Revere]

Tort reform is allowing negligence and setting a market price for it by statute instead of the jury system setting it which this country was FOUNDED ON.

Bald. R. Dash.

Tort reform allows for recovery of economic damages (medical expenses, lost income, etc.) What it gets rid of is the Super Lotto aspect of getting obscene non-economic damages with large percentages going to tort lawyers.

Ask John Edwards how he became a multi-millionaire driving OB-GYNS out of his state.

33 states (if I remember) have capped non-economic damages at around $250K.

Yet, we are still talking about Tort Reform.

What does that tell you?

It tells me those states don't make the loser pay the winner if the loser is the plaintiff.

 

[geauxtohell]

Physicians have no say about what BigPharma does? LOL.
You know nothing about politics. The medical lobby is as powerful or more powerful as the pharma lobby.

I am from Missouri (really).

Show me.

Guess why now over half of adults eat prescription dope daily and in 1960 it was 15%.
Viagra is on race cars dude. Doctors MARKET the expensive drugs and get kickbacks from the insurance companies to write the generic ones.

Doctors don't market shit. You think the AMA is sponsoring the Viagra racecar and paying Smiling Bob? No. That would be Pfizer.

If you have proof of any Doctor receiving any sort of financial incentive from a pharmaceutical company to prescribe one drug over another, you should notify your state board of healing arts. That's beyond unethical. It's illegal.

I am very surprised that you ignore the fact that 60% of ALL health care dollars are spent on 4% of the population. And over 90% of those dollars are for disease care.
And 8 out of 9 of those diseases are PREVENTABLE.

Most diseases are preventable. I don't see what your point is. People come to physicians when they are generally beyond the "prevention stage", though we all believe in preventative medicine (have you heard my vaccine schpeel on here yet?).

It's not Doctors sticking that cigarette in people's mouth our pumping them full of Big Macs.

That is disease care and our model here is geared for that. That speciality area of medical practice is far more profitable than health care family practice.

I agree. Why wouldn't a "specialty" anything be more profitable than a "general" anything? And you are talking to someone who wants to be a generalist.

Heart surgeries for 89 year old Americans, keeping my father hooked up to life support while I had to fight them for a week with a DNR order in place, his living will in my hand and my mother arguing with the hospital administration are all a part of the disease care operation at work. Dad wanted no life support, they gave it him with a DNR order on file and ran up over 80K in fees over a week period, almost all of it paid by Medicare.
Multiply that times millions and there you have it. Disease care for profit with a man dieing and wanting to go peacefully.

I am sorry to hear about your trouble. I am not sure why that happened and I won't try to guess. However, I doubt it was some sort of fraudulent activity. For whatever it is worth, that is completely the opposite of what we are told to do. Have you read anything by Bill Colby on this matter?

96% of the population receiving 40% of all health care dollars AND GROWING. You may believe that is a good health care model for society but it isn't.

Good healthcare for society is for Americans to get off their fat asses and exercise, eat healthy, and stop smoking.

I am not holding my breath that that is what is going to happen.

Again, Doctors didn't invent cardiovascular disease, COPD, or Diabetes. They just treat it. What is the alternative? You seem to want to blame the people who are trying to squeeze every ounce of life out of patients who have made a lifetime's worth of bad decisions.

The facts are also that 40% of the remaining health care dollars spent in the US go to treat the remaining 96% of the population.
And 8 out of the 9 diseases treated with that disease care model are preventable.
Cha ching.

Would you please elaborate more on the "disease care model"? You really haven't told me what it is. Just a lot of wild eyed accusations and a very sad anecdote.

Contrary to your beliefs, there isn't some magic box with magic cures for diseases that the medical industry is keeping under lock and key so they can profit off of human suffering.

The only people that claim otherwise are guys like this:

Kevin Trudeau - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Revere]

Most diseases are not preventable.

 

[geauxtohell]

My father was a neurosurgeon. My brother is a neurosurgeon.

How much is it worth to you to have a guy save your life, by digging around in your head, cauterizing this, cutting that, removing that blob, sewing this thingy to that thingy, stitching you up, and you still are able to recognize, and USE a fork, and know that pants go on your legs and hats go on your head?

Their annual malpractice premiums cost more than your house. Let that soak in......they buy the equivalent of your house, and pay it off, EVERY YEAR< just to make a living.

And each are/were (my father has passed) considered to be the absolute best risk their insurance providers could take, so their premiums were the lowest that were offered.

The first $500,000 a surgeon makes each year goes to pay his overhead (insurance and office staff. For highly specialized surgeons like neuro and cardio, make it $750,000). It doesn't even scratch the surface of what they invested, and it doesn't put an ounce of food on the table.

With tort reform, an operation my brother currently charges $48,000 for would fall to about $25,000.

Not to mention, I bet they both spent about 16 to 20 years of their life devoting themselves to this. They deserve every penny they make.

Hey now, why stop at doctors? Great idea!
Why not just eliminate the jury system all together so folks can make more $ and lower their overhead?
Everything we have and eat is brought to us by tractor trailer. How about tort reform there also where no one can collect anymore than 250K noneconomic damages when a truck runs into them and are negligent and it kills them?
And how about tort reform on lawyers? They wait too long to file your multi million dollar damages case and the statute of limitations has run. You gave them the case 14 months ago, they signed you up and you hired them to do the legal work yet they were negligent and forgot to file the case. What punitive conditions would you have with your tort reform?
NONE.
Tort reform is allowing negligence and setting a market price for it by statute instead of the jury system setting it which this country was FOUNDED ON.
You folks would do well under a dictatorship. After all, why have freedoms and the jury system when folks can make more $$?
Funny thing is my cousin is a surgeon and his overhead is less than 100K. His med/mal insurance is 30K a year in NY. No one doctor anywhere in America has a 750K overhead by himself. Your brother is part of a group and that is their overhead.

I agree with you on this. Healthcare shouldn't be a "protected class" that is immune from having to answer for a civil wrong, just as every other profession.

 

[geauxtohell]

Bald. R. Dash.

Tort reform allows for recovery of economic damages (medical expenses, lost income, etc.) What it gets rid of is the Super Lotto aspect of getting obscene non-economic damages with large percentages going to tort lawyers.

Ask John Edwards how he became a multi-millionaire driving OB-GYNS out of his state.

33 states (if I remember) have capped non-economic damages at around $250K.

Yet, we are still talking about Tort Reform.

What does that tell you?

It tells me those states don't make the loser pay the winner if the loser is the plaintiff.

Why should we implement "loser pay" for civil wrongs? We don't send the accusers to prison when the defendants aren't convicted.

 

[geauxtohell]

Most diseases are not preventable.

Most diseases, are in fact, preventable.

With the exception of genetic and autoimmune diseases, I can think of few diseases that aren't preventable.