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Actually, what's needed is the reform of the insurance industry, not a tort reform. Medical malpractice payouts have actually declined steadily over the past 15 years, while premiums have risen. Moreover, even in states that have enacted tort reform, premiums keep growing, and insurance careers were blatantly lying to legislatures when they promised to lower the premiums if caps are put on awards.
Insurance is another scam of usury, and should be abolished and outlawed.
There is no logic to underwriting, where the innocent pay for the guilty.
What causes medical costs to go up?
[] inflation (loss of buying power of the current monies)
[] increased overhead costs (insurance paperwork, legal costs, bureaucracy)
[] scarcity of care givers (medical schooling is suspiciously restricted)
[] usury (interest on debt)
[] taxation
What would cause medical costs to go down?
[] deflation (increased buying power)
[] reduced overhead costs (eliminate 'insurance' paperwork, etc)
[] increased supply of care givers (expand opportunities for medical training)
[] ban usury (and 'medical insurers' who take profit from the premiums paid)
[] eliminate taxation on production and labor
There is no solution to astronomical medical costs by doing anything that drives the cost up.
Don't cap their income. In fact, don't cap anyone's income. If voters put caps on wages, the income tax will have to be redistributed. Right now, the top 5% earners (those with an AGI at or greater than $154,000) pay 36% of the federal income tax. The top 1% (AGI above $389,000) pay 22% of taxes.
Somebody will have to pay the bill when the deep pockets shrink. I'd hate to see those taxes shifted to the middle class. We have enough financial woes to deal with.
Anyone who feels they aren't worth every dollar they earn, wait until one saves your life or cures your kids of a tragic disease, then see if you still want to cap their salaries. If a six digit paycheck is the incentive for the best and brightest to pursue a career in medicine, then why not? If shallow celebrities and knuckledragging athletes can earn millions doing what they love, then we should be paying doctors all they're worth.
Anyone who feels they aren't worth every dollar they earn, wait until one saves your life or cures your kids of a tragic disease, then see if you still want to cap their salaries. If a six digit paycheck is the incentive for the best and brightest to pursue a career in medicine, then why not? If shallow celebrities and knuckledragging athletes can earn millions doing what they love, then we should be paying doctors all they're worth.
Good point....celebrities earn much more, but do we talk about "capping" their income?
This isn't the root cause of why healthcare is so unaffordable here....and remember, doctors have to carry malpractice insurance, which cost them an absolute fortune.
Insurance companies and greedy-a-- lawyers who suck their money from malpractice cases should be the targets here, not the doctors themselves. Only a few people on this earth are gifted enough to be in the medical profession and they deserve the reward.
Thanks all for making an argument for SINGLE payer UHC. NO insurance co and less lawyering. National View The docs (few I know) are not opposed to UHC as long as they can have a good lifestyle, practice meds w/o figuring how to get around the ins. Work on preventative medicine not crisis management. Unfortunately there is scant discussion of a single pay system.
Maybe insurance premiums might go down if doctors quit making so many mistakes. more people die every year from doctors "mistakes" than those killed with guns. Last time I read a satistic it was 30,000 in one year. thats alot of OOPs
I just want to add one thing... the learning from doctors NEVER stop, new medical knowledge ever year and doctors HAVE to be on top of it if they want to be a good doc... that means constant learning by keeping uptodate on current literature and research... a lot of learning involves talking with other physicians and comparing each other's results and trying new approaches... the classroom never ends for a doc, not even when he/she is 70 and practicing....
Maybe insurance premiums might go down if doctors quit making so many mistakes.
Not a realistic expectation. Human error is endemic. Even with computerized diagnostics and flawless databases, human illnesses and their complexities will result in misdiagnosis and mistreatment.
I suspect that before inexpensive universal health care can be implemented, industrialization of medical care will have to be instituted.
Treatment on the assembly line....
Reduction of medical costs is a reasonable goal. An example of the inexpensive medical care is cataract surgery in the third world. The Wellness Revolution - Geoff Tabin
Tabin and Ruit deliver cataract surgery at $20 per surgery. Which is 175 times cheaper than $3,500 (U.S.A.) pricetag.
Let your speculations run wild-
[] Mass production medical care at affordable prices []
As a physician myself, I'm actually surprised by how insightful and positive the forum has been on this issue. I presumed the topic would be filled with people consistently stating doctors should earn way less.
It is a real problem as one takes a look at relatively bright and highly motivated people willing to give up their 20's and often times part of their 30's while earning nothing and acruing a great deal of debt.
I was very fortunate, exiting medical school with 60K of debt in 1994. However, I managed to get into the public system and had parents that fully supported me undergraduate and partially in medical school. Students going through the private system, often exit medical school with 300K of debt and then while in residency, rapidly have interest acrue.
The answer to the cost of medical care is not reduction of physician salaries (unless the cost of education and the cost of deferred earning is addressed in another way). I currently work outside of the U.S. and earn similar income to what I made in the U.S., but in a socialized system that spends much less % of GDP on healthcare. The system is the problem.
An earlier comparison of doctors to carpenters doesn't hold much water. If you would let someone, albeit as talented, but as unschooled as a carpenter make complex decisions on your health ... go to it.
The amount of medical errors is a concern; but one has to look at the % of errors vs. successful treatment and also realize that too many doctors are not as sharp as they should be and this places a burden on patients to get second opinions when things don't seem right.
I would like to see more support for medical students, less debt and lower salaries -- but this would require support during education. Right now there is none and as such, any highly talented individual would move away from medicine as a career if salaries were to decline. Is this what everyone wants?
Swagger has it exactly right. Doctors pay an exorbitant (sp?) amount of malpractice insurance and depending on the state like here in PA, the malpractice insurance is sending doctors away. My family practice I used to belong to started with seven doctors, after PA raised the price of malpractice insurance the practice literally went down to three docs. The simply couldn't afford to live as doctors here in PA. So, in most cases it's not as easy as you think for them to lower their rates. These days it doesn't necessarily pay to be a doctor unless you are in a specific field. Family doctors however do not make money.
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The docs (few I know) are not opposed to UHC as long as they can have a good lifestyle, practice meds w/o figuring how to get around the ins. Work on preventative medicine not crisis management. Unfortunately there is scant discussion of a single pay system.
Last time I read a satistic it was 30,000 in one year. thats alot of OOPs
