Comments on: The Future Structure of American Medicine

By: anneperiou

anneperiou — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 18:08:21 +0000

I’m a physicians wife and you and the gov’t is simplifying a very complex problem. Wny do physicians need appropriate compensation, believe it or not its a business, they have bills to pay, rent on their office employee’s saleries, insurances of various kinds. Don’t think that we don’t understand because we have to pay for healthcare too, to the toon of 18,000 per year because Dr’s are considered high risk. Then we have to pay malpractice 20,000+depending on your specialty, income tax, social security+++, unemployment insurance, state tax, property tax etc. it goes on and on. Every time the gov’t changes compensation what seems like a small amount turns into a significant loss for the people who give the care. I don’ understand this rediculous assumption that we will go bankrupt they just want to controll the money for other purposes after all the health care industry is not the blood sucker the federal gov’t is, they are the ones that do nothing for the money we pay.
Let me give you an example. you have surgery for hip replacement, say your anesthesia bill is 300 for the sake of simplisity, Medicare allows the physician to collect 42% of this bill, now of this 42%they pay 80%of that which is 100.80 so the remaining 15.20 is either for the supplimental policy to pay or for the patient to pay which they rarely do.
In the last thirty years I have watched private insurance decrease itspayments in direct proportion to gov’t compensation.
My biggest question is why would you think that our government would be the best organization to overhaul our health care. Do you really want your personal information regarding your health mental or physical to end up on a computer in D. C.
They have had an extremely poor track record for oversite , the stock exchange etc. foster care, I could go on it has a poor track record. The health care industry needed 1.9 billion to relieve the already overworked health care poviders but could they come up with this no so mistakes get made when people are tired and in many cases the dr you are seeing in the er has been awake more than 24 hrs, try staying awake for 24 hrs and seehow confused you get, but we can send 69 billion to Palistine.
Enormous amounts of money have been taken away from the health care providers and now are in the hands of the administrators. I could go on and on but when I see these people on TV including the pres I have to say they don’t know anything about what they are talking about, end they never even touch on tort reform they don’t regulate lawers saleries why should they engage in what clearly is price fixing. The bottom line is that without money you will get mediocre care , they will not be able to afford the supplies necessary for treatments, they will not be able to do the testing necessary to make a good diagnosis . Diagnosing is a process of exclusion so a negative test is not unnecessary test it lets them know which way to go.
In my mind the Pres is doing a whole lot of talking about a subject that he knows little about, and isproposing a bill that he hasn’t even read, it seems to me that the best thing the government could do is stay to stay out of it.

By: zelgo

zelgo — Thu, 14 May 2009 20:39:04 +0000

Hilariously bad analysis of American healthcare.

We pay more (per person) than any other country in the world for healthcare ($7600/person) and the next is France ($2600/person, BUT we have among the worst health in the world–lower life spans, higher infant mortality, worse outcomes on chronic diseases, etc.–not just a little worse–like 42nd in the world for healthcare!

So, no one’s getting paid more–docs need to get over it. In other countries, they’ve dealt with this by making medical school free so that docs have no loans. Docs choose to go because they want to, not so they can become rich. Malpractice is paid with a common governmental fund, so it’s cheaper for everyone. There are standard health forms (unlike in the US where every insurance co has a different form–leading to more costs and waste).

Think this is socialized medicine and you don’t want it? Europeans love their healthcare systems–we HATE ours (80% of Americans give our system a C or below grade). One-sixth of our country is uninsured and can’t even get to a doctor. 51% of bankrupcies have a medical cause–this is unheard of in Europe.

We will definitely change healthcare systems because we’ll go broke as a country unless we do. Everyone who’s making money off the current healthcare system better watch out!

By: Jerry O'Brien

Jerry O'Brien — Thu, 14 May 2009 19:44:58 +0000

This is pure nonsense. Blue cross which is my private provider will not pay an anesthesiologist for a colonoscopy. My private pay will not pay for any nontraditional medicine, that means drug therapy, or no therapy. The question to adequate medical service for everyone is to have more family doctors and internists; approximately four or five times as many as you have now. No oncologist is going to get sued because his his terminal patient dies. That is crap and anyone who has had a family member or two die of cancer knows it. The best doctor in the world isn’t going to beat aggressive cancers in the long run, treatment should be to maximize the quality of life not the quantity.

If doctors were paid fairly to treat everyone and not just those with the best insurance, they would still make a good living, maybe not a Porsche or Rolls Royce living but they wouldn’t go hungry. The problem with health care in America is the AMA and the Insurance industry, not doctors or patients.

By: Dayona

Dayona — Thu, 14 May 2009 19:26:10 +0000

There is no question that health care and health insurance is expensive. I believe that the first step in “fixing” health care is to get to the root of why costs have sky rocketed? Why is insurance so expensive? Why are procedures so costly? Why does an aspirin cost so much during a hospital stay? Is iy doctor’s salaries? I always thought that health care cost are what they are today because of lawsuits. Drugs are expensive because of lawsuits. Individual lawsuits, class action lawsuits. Granted, some suits may be warranted, but the ridiculous award settlements are what, I believe, have caused the increase in health care costs. Oddly enough I never hear a mention about addressing that problem. Congress always attacks a problem in the most nonsensical way. To me, you can’s solve a problem without determining the root of the problem. It’s lunacy to think that congress can do this in a year.

By: Paula Lim

Paula Lim — Thu, 14 May 2009 16:46:13 +0000

I’m all for healthcare reform. How can we call ourselves a civilized nation if we cannot provide medical care froa all of our citizens. but. as the wife of an oncologist, this reform CANNOT be mandated on the backs of hard working doctors. No wonder my daughter prefers to go into a fiels such as pathology. In my opinion, if LAWmakers, i.e.mostly lawyers, have the ability to regulate the pay of physicians, then maybe physicians shouls be given the power to regulate the worth of a lawyer. Who sets limits on what they can charge per client? per hour? per case? Or is there attention, though not usually lifesaving, “priceless” as MasterCard would say?

By: Really? I mean Reeealy?

Really? I mean Reeealy? — Thu, 14 May 2009 16:29:55 +0000

You’ve got to be kidding. Its “American Greed” thats broken here not the health system. Doctors in all other countries make a decent living, the visits aren’t horrendous and they still have people entering into medicine.
My friends wife was just in the hospital for 5 DAYS with a breathing problem…totally fixed in 5 days. THE BILL?
55 THOUSAND DOLLARS! of course his insurance picks that up but where do we come off charging this type of money? 10 grand PLUS PER DAY?
Plus, one of my students tells me about all the unethical goings on in his hospital; like nurses taking photos of larger male genitalia when the patient is under sedation! (they have a collection of photos in the back room!) we’re PAYING FOR THIS NONSENSE!! and you’d like to see the status quo continue eh?

To get paid a billizion dollars to remove an appendix is what the problem is. Same goes for someone that can smack a baseball. 43 million to do that?
Our system of greed needs revamped. Our values need revamped.

Trying to scare people off medicaid with this uneducated rant is ridiculous.

By: Noelo E. Martin

Noelo E. Martin — Thu, 14 May 2009 15:41:26 +0000

I was born in 1927, I recall that when I was young, it was common for folk to want to be dOctors,Nurses, Teachers, POLICE AND OTHERS INCLUDING POLITICIANS FOR THE REASON THEY WANTED TO DO THINGS TO HELP THEIR FELLOW MAN, NOT FOR THE MONEY, WHICH WAS LOWER ON MOST OF THOSE JOBS THAN A TRADESMAN OF SOME FACTORY HELP. MONEY SHOULD BE SECONDARY IN ANY SOCIETY. WE WERE ALL PUT HERE TO BE OF SERVICE TO ONE ANOTHER. WE ALL ENJOY OUR LUXURIES, BUT MANY OF US STILL ENJOY AND ARE DEEPLY GRATIFIED TO BE THERE TO HELP WHENEVER WE CAN AND NOT EXPECT GREAT MONETARY REWARD. OUR REWARD IS OUR SENSE OF DOING GODS WORK. OUR REWARD WILL COME LATER.