Actually, most physicians do follow expert recommendations through much of their career. They follow recommendations from CDC and USPHS on how to provide pertinent information to patients, and how to proceed during a epidemic or outbreak. They follow recommendations from USPSTS on which screening tests are worthwhile and which are not. They follow recommendations from FDC on which drugs are safe and which are cautionable. They follow recommendations from researchers in JAMA, NEJM, and BMJ. They also follow recommendations from seniors in their own specialty.

You get the picture... physicians, like most people, are indecisive souls, and they fish for expert advice, in an effort to take the burden of responsibility off their shoulders and onto someone else's.

Although I will agree with you on one point - that the President should support caps on malpractice awards (relating to pain and suffering). However, in lieu of that, we need to establish a different system of punishment for physicians, such as probation or suspension of license after a certain number of negligent incidents. While these large malpractice awards are outrageous, it is the fear of them that keeps physicians honest and conscientious. Otherwise we'd have a number of foolhardy docs walking around without fear.

No, how can you read that as sarcasm? Tantene is a place RussianJoo, a place where the immigration is located in GND.

Look people, very simplified, docs should be reimbursed for the education they have and the hours that they put in. When Jo Blow was out yukking it up at the bar with his buddies, I was cramming for Path.
But we cannot have people, through lack of insurance, failing to receive treatment. We cannot stand for that and call ourselves the most advanced (industrialized) country, whilst keeping a straight face.
There again, some people are just plain irresponsible by way of their lifestyle. Should I pay for the consequences of my neighbor smoking, him knowing full well how deleterous it is to his health, no. Should I pick up the tab for a baby-making machine. No.

Now, more popcorn as this shouild be very entertaining..........

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Even though he spelled North Dakota wrong while he was doing it

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yes but those recommendations are made secondary to studies that have been conducted, by organizations to which our peers belong to. And the recommendation to do less tests and lab work came from the government for one simple reason and that is to save money, not to improve patient care. I agree with you that there should be other ways to punish doctors who are negligent, but it's ridiculous to think that a physician will order less ct scans or MRI's just because the government recommended it, last time I checked the Chairman didn't have a medical degree and neither did anyone in the Senate or the House of Representatives. These extra tests are done to cover our butts, by doctors who are not negligent but just the opposite over cautious, maybe because they were sued in the past, or their friend was sued.... but stating that by getting rid of these unnecessary tests we can cut health care costs by X amount of Millions of dollars (if not billions of dollars) and then claiming that we will use that money to fund part of the national health care is just a plain lie.. because most physicians won't reduce the number of tests they order on a recommendation from the government for the sole purpose to save some money..now if the government mandates that these tests not be ordered then that's a different story... but you're saying that these are recomendations.

This is what you should expect with the national health care... it's going to be harder to get approvol for an MRI from the national healthcare than it will from a private insurance company.. and it's already pretty hard to get that approved in some cases.

Just today an anesthesiologist opened a swan-ganz catheter kit just to show me how it works.. that kit easily costs a few hundred dollars, and it was wasted for a 4min demonstration. another surgeon asked for different sutures that he ended up not using and that ended up being thrown away simply because they're now open and can't be used for another case once open.. sutures are cheap, a few dollars, but multiply that by a few thousand that are being wasted across all the ORs in the US each day and you could quickly save a few million dollars per year just by not opening an unneeded suture. Things get wasted in hospitals every day and no one is complaining, it's going to be almost impossible to change the way we are.. and lets face it, Americans are a society that likes to waste things just to feel comfortable or protected. This is the american way...

If the national health care plan doesn't pay as well as private insurance and will not become manditory for physicians to accept it, you'll see most private physicians not accept it, and then the majority of the population will need to go to the ER to get their care, just like millions of people without insurance do today.. so what exactly will this acomplish? When those with national health care will have to wait for weeks to be seen by one of the few physicians that accepts the plan they'll quickly switch back to private insurance.

I posted an article about this in the relaxing lounge.. how Mass. tried to have a state wide health care plan and they saw an increase in the number of patients that couldn't get appointments with physicians.. the excuses they were given were #1) the physician isn't accepting anymore new patients #2) the physician doesn't accept this type of insurance.

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Due to the high volume of private messages, I can only answer questions that are posted in a forum. Private messages will be ignored.

An NHS type of healthcare as in the UK, only, ONLY works if you fund the damned thing. For example, foreign aid (India sending a probe to the moon, whilst also seeing an Indian company buying Jaguar and Land Rover) is THREE times that of the NHS deficit. Priorities people!! You have to fund it or it will not work......

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1) He personally works 10 hours a day M-Th for his 40 public hours, takes Fridays and Sundays off, and 12 hours on Sat. at his private clinic. The US relative is standard 50 hours a week and call one weekend a month. Keep in mind they are both at the peak of their careers, and can afford significant PA and Locum coverage.

2) Force is a harsh word, I don't think that the government will force doctors to do anything rather use an incentive system ie) significant tax break and loan forgiving

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I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you're proud of. If you find that you're not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again...

I dont know where you are from but if you live near a metropolitan center, you can't raise a family of four for under 200,000 a year if you plan to pay for all the aforementioned...in my area the cheapest townhome is 350k, college is 20k a year, car payments are a hundred or two, so it all adds up. My point of view is considering all the B.S. doctors get put through with excessive school, patients, and hours we diserve the best in life...or what little time we have to ourselves.

....should have read the whole thread RJ beat me to this one, and by the way I preferred Maobama to the chairman

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I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you're proud of. If you find that you're not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again...

Well folks, keeping all arguments aside, I think everyone agrees that something major needs to be done to reform the health care system, because the current system is obviously not working. The public insurance system may or may not work, but we will never know unless we try it, and we can't just do nothing, so might as well give it a shot. At the very least, it will manage to scare the p*** out of private insurers (and it has already), and get them to set their house straight.

You are seriously delusional if you are actually going to compare Mao to Obama .

Being a doctor is not a birth right it is a privilege that can be taken away....so for you to say that you deserve the best in life just b/c YOU CHOSE to go to med school, YOU CHOSE to enter residency, YOU CHOSE to incur large debts, YOU CHOSE to work in a field with huge work hours....you actually think society actually owes...get real.

You don't deserve the best in life...no one is going to hand it to....you deserve to get what you put in and if you can't manage your income well its your problem not the rest of society.

start saving for your kids college the moment that they were conceived so it actually wouldn't be much of a hassle when college time roles around...you have no one but yourself to blame.

If the cheapest townhome in your area is 350k don't leave there b/c you can't afford it.

If living in a city is too expensive for you and your family ....move to the suburbs or any other area that you can afford.

I seriously can't believe we have people that actually think 80k and above is not enough....seriously as American do we not know anything about financial responsibility, delayed gratification, and smart planning.

If you are going to correct my spelling and grammer at least you could have done the same thing in your post.

Did you know the price of SGU and other D.O. schools before you applied?
Did you know about the malpractice insurance costs and the fact that many doctors are sued by their patients before you decided to become a physician?
Did you know the cost of homes in Cali, Jersey, and New York before you decided that those are the 3 states that you plan on setting up shop there to stay forever.
Did you know about the hours that you will have to work as a resident and as a physician before you applied to med school?




2. You didn't talk about the rest of my post...about the fact that we pay more than any other nation in the world but our health care system still sucks. I also forgot to add that woman pay more insurance than men and that the insurance companies can deny woman coverage if she has had c-section in the past.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/30/us/30insure.html


3. Let's talk about the people who do have insurance and yet still can't afford to get sick.
The study estimates that 57 million Americans live in families struggling with medical bills, and 43 million of those have insurance coverage. “It’s hitting both the insured and the uninsured, and it’s hitting middle-class families,” said Karen Davis, the president of the Commonwealth Fund, a nonprofit research organization that financed the study.
Because they are already in debt over their medical care, some families start forgoing treatments, even for serious or chronic conditions, Ms. Davis said. By deciding not to fill a prescription for high blood pressure medication or failing to go to the doctor for diabetes, they are at risk of incurring more serious and costly problems that can land them in the emergency room.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/25/bu.../25health.html

4. What do you think about the growing cost of premiums.
Although inflation in insurance premiums has moderated in recent years, the Kaiser survey found that employees were continuing to spend more in medical costs, including their share of yearly insurance premiums. Employees are paying an average of $3,354 in premiums for family coverage, more than double the amount they paid in 1999. The total cost for family coverage now averages $12,680 a year, up 5 percent from 2007.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/25/bu.../25health.html

3. I don't understand how the AMA want to support private insurance but is against a public options b/c it might actually be cheaper, provide more coverage, and accept people with pre-existing conditions.
What has the AMA done to promote tort reform laws, rising cost of medical education, and the low wages that residents make?

4. You do realize that the cost of homes in California, NJ, and Ny have gone down since 2006.
Prices have declined by an average of 15 to 20 percent in every county in the past three and a half years, contract sales data indicates. At the start of 2009, some real estate professionals said they had noticed a few sellers starting to “see the light” and agreeing to slash asking prices by 10 to 20 percent, sometimes even 25 percent.
New Jersey Real Estate Report “Home prices are falling and will continue to fall.”

5. Have you ever lived in NJ, NY, Conn., and CA and have you ever brought a home in those areas to know the price? When you mean by NY..do you mean the NYC or the surrounding areas b/c it is cheaper to live outside NYC and her boroughs.

6. Do you really think that NJ, NY, Conn. and CA are the only states that matter ....what about Oregon, Colorado, Texas, Georgia, Arizona, Nevada and the other 40 states and 2 territories ( U.S virgin islands and Puerto Rico) ...

7. Can you honestly sit there in front of your computer and say that the health care system that we have right now is okay and that nothing needs to be changed?

8. You complain about the hours of a physican....could you please name 5 jobs( actors and athletes not included) that will allow you to make six figures without working more than 60 hrs/wk in the first 3 years on the job?


9. Do you think that it is perfectly okay for the health insurance company to deny people with pre-existing conditions?