My Doctor and UHC

I briefly mentioned this in another thread today.
Last week, I went for a follow up appointment with my doctor.

He told me just before we ended our visit that he was leaving the private practice he has with two other physicians.
I asked him why. He said he felt like "the way things are going now" , that it would be best for him to seek another path.

That path is to teach geriatrics in residency programs, so he's moving to Columbus later this month and I feel like I am losing the best freaking doctor on the planet.

As for my own health insurance, I have Medical Mutual.
It's been a great plan thus far through where I work, but all this talk of insurance companies biting the dust has me worried, whether they are large OR small group plans.

The Obama and democrat congress plan is to fuck it up so bad that we have no choice except to rely on a single payer system, just like they want it. Just watch the bi-racial, racist Kenyan do his dirty work.

It has me seriously worried, Joe.
For the first time, I am really concerned about it.

I've been concerned from day one. Even before that, thought the system was going to hell.

pirate_girl said:

It has me seriously worried, Joe.
For the first time, I am really concerned about it.

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PG I dont want you to be scared. I really believe, if we can get through the years of obstruction by the right, UHC will be better for everyone. I have worked in hospitals public and private and spent most of my Masters researching it. I really think it will be a good thing. Someday.

mak2 said:

PG I dont want you to be scared. I really believe, if we can get through the years of obstruction by the right, UHC will be better for everyone. I have worked in hospitals public and private and spent most of my Masters researching it. I really think it will be a good thing. Someday.

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I lived in the UK covered by the National Health Service for 5 years, Mak, and never thought it to be a bad thing.
However, I am not so sure that is comparable to what is going to be forthcoming for us.

mak2 said:

PG I dont want you to be scared. I really believe, if we can get through the years of obstruction by the right, UHC will be better for everyone. I have worked in hospitals public and private and spent most of my Masters researching it. I really think it will be a good thing. Someday.

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Academicians and politicians have little grasp on reality. They live in a world of dreams.

pirate_girl said:

I lived in the UK covered by the National Health Service for 5 years, Mak, and never thought it to be a bad thing.
However, I am not so sure that is comparable to what is going to be forthcoming for us.

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I was covered by it for 38 years and never though it was too bad but that was only because I didn't know any better. It was all that I'd ever known. After spending 25 years in the USA I have absolutely no doubt about what is the superior system.

Now I'm not going to get embroiled in this debate. It's been done to death. No manner of reason or logic is going to change anyone's mind or preconceived fantasies but I'm worried, very worried.

If the new system is anything like what they have in the military, we are screwed.

My great niece almost go thrown off base after trying to get into see a doctor with no luck.

Of course Obama worshipers can't see it, but I mentioned physicians leaving the profession or country in the thread about insurance companies leaving. Two minutes of research will leave you with all the evidence you need that we already have a shortage of physicians. In response to that fact, medical schools are lowering their admission standards. Is that what we really want?!

I can't blame them. My daughter is the valedictorian of her senior class and will be graduating this month. She has always wanted to be a physician. However, now she wonders if it will be worth it. Sure, most physicians are in their profession because they want to help people. However, the average new physician has hundreds of thousands in student loans and many years of working long hours for little pay during their internship before they become 'real' doctors. Even then, they work really long hours under great pressure. They must make relatively big money to just get out of the hole they start in. Let Obama take away the earning potential yet still force them to treat many people who never pay and it becomes an undesirable profession.

I don't know about you, but personally I don't want a doctor who got in med school because they dropped their standards so much that they take nearly anyone who applies. It's sort of like the physicians, so to speak, who received their degrees in some Caribbean island because no stateside med school would accept them. I'll pass on those physicians. If I have to travel out of the country in the future to get good medical care, I suppose that's what I'll have to do.

Hopefully enough people will recognize what Obama is doing to our country with his "do what you're told" fellow Democrats and vote them out of office before they completely destroy our country. Without a doubt, our country is in worse shape now than when Omamma took office and not many people see it getting any better in the near future. It's time to realize that we have the wrong people in key positions. If seeing top physicians opt to quit or leave their practice isn't enough to get your attention, you're simply not paying any attention.

It will all be sloughed off as "unintended consequences", the new words used by libs to cover their total lack of ability to anticipate, and only run on feelings. I mentioned this was going to happen often in the discussions here. The medical profession's standards will keep being reduced until those standards are lowered to the point we have enough "doctors". Works in grade school and high school, right?

pirate_girl said:

I lived in the UK covered by the National Health Service for 5 years, Mak, and never thought it to be a bad thing.
However, I am not so sure that is comparable to what is going to be forthcoming for us.

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My problem girl is we didn't get UHC not even a close really. What we got is our current system with the Fed's subsidizing those that can't pay nothing more at all. I simply don't understand the sudden urge for doctor's to quite but so be it as nothing will change for them at all.

So he's leaving the practice to become a teacher? There must be a reason that he thinks it is a secure position.

Dargo said:

My daughter is the valedictorian of her senior class and will be graduating this month. She has always wanted to be a physician. However, now she wonders if it will be worth it.

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I guess it depends on what motivates her to be a physician.
There are professions and there are callings. Patients know the difference.

lets be honest about this....yes, being a Dr. is a calling of sorts BUT, there's aslo a money factor involved. NO ONE is going to come out of 7-8 years of school, with over 250k worth of debt, and expect to live like a preacher their whole life ( being a preacher is a calling)
Investing that much of your life- and sometimes putting it on hold with huge debt and no house is a sacrafice that is expected to be rewarded monitarily. Even patients have expectations on how they thin their Dr.s lifestyle should be.

SShepherd said:

lets be honest about this....yes, being a Dr. is a calling of sorts BUT, there's aslo a money factor involved. NO ONE is going to come out of 7-8 years of school, with over 250k worth of debt, and expect to live like a preacher their whole life ( being a preacher is a calling)
Investing that much of your life- and sometimes putting it on hold with huge debt and no house is a sacrafice that is expected to be rewarded monitarily. Even patients have expectations on how they thin their Dr.s lifestyle should be.

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A calling of sorts?

So you want a doctor whose in it only for the money? Only for the lifestyle? Only for the BMW and prestiege? Is that what your expectations of your doctor is?

A doctor has to care about his or her patients to be a good doctor. If a doctor thinks of the patients and the paitents family as a pain in his or her ass that has to be endured on the way to a paycheck to pay off a student loan and ultimately make it to the country club, then maybe they need to seek a different profession.

I don't know one patient or family member who cares about a doctors lifestyle when they or their loved one is in the ICU. Those people care about compassion and competence and nothing else.

SShepherd said:

lets be honest about this....yes, being a Dr. is a calling of sorts BUT, there's aslo a money factor involved. NO ONE is going to come out of 7-8 years of school, with over 250k worth of debt, and expect to live like a preacher their whole life ( being a preacher is a calling)
Investing that much of your life- and sometimes putting it on hold with huge debt and no house is a sacrafice that is expected to be rewarded monitarily. Even patients have expectations on how they thin their Dr.s lifestyle should be.

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That's very true. Unless their name is Gates, Buffett, etc., nobody is going to spend all the time, money and effort to become a physician with a specific surgery specialty without expectation of compensation commensurate with their education and skills. To espouse anything else would be considered less than truthful by most everyone. Hey, it's almost like saying I'll work 18 hours a day all my life and just give all my money to the government. It's just my calling to work. The government knows better than me what to do with my money.

Cityboy said:

A calling of sorts?

So you want a doctor whose in it only for the money?

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Please, be specific, and show us all where anyone has stated that they want to be a physician only for the money. C'mon. You made that statement. Be a man. Back it up. You're trying to stir shit with a very short stick and it's starting to make you smell. Reply to what is written, not what you think you can twist something to say.

Cityboy said:

A calling of sorts?

So you want a doctor whose in it only for the money? Only for the lifestyle? Only for the BMW and prestiege? Is that what your expectations of your doctor is?

A doctor has to care about his or her patients to be a good doctor. If a doctor thinks of the patients and the paitents family as a pain in his or her ass that has to be endured on the way to a paycheck to pay off a student loan and ultimately make it to the country club, then maybe they need to seek a different profession.

I don't know one patient or family member who cares about a doctors lifestyle when they or their loved one is in the ICU. Those people care about compassion and competence and nothing else.

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So they are endure just to make people better without reward after their sacrifice? And your last paragraph makes no sense at all, people being healed don't give a damn how much the doctor makes and frankly he deserves to live good if he's doing good.

Dargo said:

Please, be specific, and show us all where anyone has stated that they want to be a physician only for the money. C'mon. You made that statement. Be a man. Back it up. You're trying to stir shit with a very short stick and it's starting to make you smell. Reply to what is written, not what you think you can twist something to say.

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Real good post from a moderator no less.

Cityboy said:

So you want a doctor whose in it only for the money? Only for the lifestyle? Only for the BMW and prestiege? Is that what your expectations of your doctor is?

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CB, this is your post to which Dargo was responding. Shep did not say anything of the sort, contrary to your above quoted comment, and Dargo took issue with it. So what?

Big Dog said:

So they are endure just to make people better without reward after their sacrifice? And your last paragraph makes no sense at all, people being healed don't give a damn how much the doctor makes and frankly he deserves to live good if he's doing good.

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BD, maybe you ought to read my post again. Especially the last paragraph.

jpr62902 said:

CB, this is your post to which Dargo was responding. Shep did not say anything of the sort, contrary to your above quoted comment, and Dargo took issue with it. So what?

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So you think Dargo's post is civil and worth replying to? If that's the best he can do is sling profanity, I have no time for it.

My whole point is that there is much more to medicine than money, and most doctors understand this. This whole issue of doctors quitting because of the HC bill is ridiculous and nothing more than right wing rhetoric. No different than similar left wing rhetoric.

The good doctors will still be practicing doctors when the rhetotic clears, and the ones who need to go will go. The bottom line is there is not one fact to back up any of this hand wringing from the right, just alarmist editorializing. If people would simply take the time to learn what is driving our healthcare problems and stop listening to the knee-jerk rhetoric from the Becks and Limbaughs of the corporotocracy we could fix this as a people and a nation.

But I think most here just want to gripe and complain and have no interest in finding a real solution. It's simply easier to blame Obama for this crisis that has been building the last 50 years.

Cityboy said:

BD, maybe you ought to read my post again. Especially the last paragraph.

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I did, still doesn't make sense especially bringing the hypothetical situation of how you think doctors, patients and family members think or their motives.

You have a tendency of stating your opinion as fact and it gets old.

Big Dog said:

You have a tendency of stating your opinion as fact and it gets old.

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The unthinking parroting of right wing rhetoric and talking points is what's getting old.

I wish folks on this forum would engage in civil discourse.

Civil discourse is engagement in conversation intended to enhance understanding. Done well, it can drive to insight that is actionable in the context of furthering individual dignity and improving society.

CityGirl said:

I wish folks on this forum would engage in civil discourse.

Civil discourse is engagement in conversation intended to enhance understanding. Done well, it can drive to insight that is actionable in the context of furthering individual dignity and improving society.

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Can't say I'm a pillar of civil discourse, but I do agree, CG.

"To whom much is given, much will be expected." Doctors fall nicely into this category, and I think most of them are willing to give as much of their time and talent as it takes to care for their patients. We all know how much time and money and years of living near the poverty level that doctors experience, and I have no problem with being paid exceptionally well to care for all of us, not to mention the lives they save with the knowledge they have gained over the years. My late sister-in-law was a pediatric anesthesiologist, and I can't tell you how many times she would leave family functions when her pager would go off. She was in a group and was paid a salary, so it's not like she got O.T. for going in. She did it because she loved her work, and her patients. I used to hear her talk about how the hospitals and Ins Co.'s continually beat on them to reduce payments for services, and this was throughout her career. It was always to benefit the bottom line of the hospital or the Ins. Co.

That being said, the converse could be argued to be true as well. To whom little is given, little will be expected. If the government continues to dictate lower and lower payments for the same service, I can see where the docs would throw in the towel. I walk away from work where people want me to use my talent for a fraction of its value, and I have no remorse in doing so, especially when the customer can well afford to pay the going rate. FWIW, I do charity work when requested through my church, and don't even write it off of my taxes, because I believe in giving back. But, I cannot pay my bills by giving away work all day, and neither should the doctor. Perhaps the government could cancel a few of their bridges to nowhere, and then they could afford to pay the docs a reasonable compensation for services rendered. But that would be a two way street, and the government doesn't know to travel that way.

Cityboy said:

My whole point is that there is much more to medicine than money, and most doctors understand this. This whole issue of doctors quitting because of the HC bill is ridiculous and nothing more than right wing rhetoric. No different than similar left wing rhetoric.

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CB, that sounds idealistic to me. Time will tell who is right. Some will stay others might quit. And if they do, I can't blame them. I would guess they are motivated to do good and help people AND make a decent living for it and provide nicely for their family. Take any of those away and it changes the equation. Doctors will not work for barely enough to make school loan payments nor will they go the extra mile if reimbursement is not to follow. I won't fault them for it.

Smart folks have the option to become a doctor. I'd be the first to admit given all the money in the world I would still not make it through medical school. It does take dedication and smarts. And they do it for the good of their fellow man as well as for reimbursement for themselves and his family.