Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Finally! Someone is talking about it

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

She will never get away with it...socialist

Healthcare is not a right - it is a benefit offered in the free market by employeers

Anonymous said...

Having lived in the UK for a year I can attest to the horrors of the National Healthcare system – like waiting 90 days to see your obgyn.

Later on, when I was a visiting professor in Canada, the Canadian system was even worse, because the government regulates the cost of healthcare Canadian physicians are fleeing Canada to come to the US (35% of the physicians at the University of Utah Healthcare system are Canadian).

While I was teaching in Canada I got pregnant, every physician I called in the Toronto area was refusing to take patients because they were full up. I finally found a nurse practioner who would see me, in 3 weeks.

The Canadian and UK systems of health are broken because physicians are fleeing those countries for higher paying jobs in the US – as a result there are fewer physicians per capita in those countries resulting in longer waits – people have died waiting to see a dr.

If we go to national health and take the profit out of healthcare, the same thing will happen here…and it will be people like you are responsible for the deaths of people under socialized healthcare.

Anonymous said...

I will decline medicare becuase I will have private insurance when I retire.

Anonymous said...

I can tell you about the supply and demand of dr's and that hospitals have no problems hiring foreign doctors - dr's who are fleeing socizlized systems in health care, I can give an example as one who is a faculty member at the U school of Medicine - I’m currently negotiating to hire an another physician for my clinic, U.S. med school grads tend to gravitate to large urban areas (Salt Lake is not one of them) – so, I am in the process of hiring a young Dr from Germany – fluent inn English, excellent qualifications, under state medical system in Germany he would start at only 100K plus the exorbitant tax rate that Germans carry – he is thrilled to come to the US where I can start him at 150K, he’ll be at 300 within a few yrs and will pay lower taxes.

For foreign dr’s the US is paradise as far as earnings go.

I feel bad I can only start him at 100…at IHC I could offer him maybe 135 plus bonuses.

Take the profit out of medicine – you take the quality out of medicine

Since you don't believe blogs- here is anrticle that may wake you up.


Recent studies suggest the United States health care system will soon experience a shortage of doctors and medical professionals. This is leading to increased efforts to attract foreign doctors and medical students to the United States. John Featherly narrates.


Experts say several states have or will soon experience shortages of physicians in a variety of specialties, including cardiology, radiology, surgery and pediatrics.

Dr. Susan Wolfsthal, the director of the University of Maryland's Residency Program, says the United States needs more doctors in all specialties. "There are some parts of the United States where there are many, many physicians and it is very easy for patients to have access to clinical care. And then there are other areas of the United States where there is less and there might be only one physician for many thousands of patients."

This shortage is putting pressure on American medical schools to increase enrollment and on the U.S. government to allow more foreign doctors into the country.

U.S. Congressman Rob Simmons says the United States needs these foreign nationals. "We have people who come to the United States to provide nursing care and medical care and gosh knows we need all the help we can get."

Educators, including Wolfsthal, say foreign students can gain valuable experience and knowledge studying in the United States and working in U.S. hospitals. "You get the same exposure, you get the same opportunity to see whether this is something you are interested in and they also get to see you in action."

Sonia Yousef, a rheumatology fellow at the University of Maryland, says foreign students should try to have well-rounded experiences before coming to the United States.

"So you should try to do some volunteer work, anyways it’s good, and that looks good on your resume as well. So that is probably the fourth thing, but it is not as important as clinical experience."

Wolfsthal says universities value the diversity international students bring. "When you have international graduates they bring, as someone from another institution would, they bring a different perspective, they have different interests and so they bring that to the program."

Experts and educators say foreign medical students and doctors gain a lot from their time spent in the United states. They say working in American hospitals and studying at universities in the United States gives foreign students and doctors a chance to work with the latest technology and to grow professionally.

Anonymous said...

Single mom,

My sister lives in Scotland. She has had a great experience with socialized medicine.

I also have many friends who live in countries with socialized health care. Not one of those friends that I have discussed socialized health care with would change their situation.

There are pros and cons to any situation, but the free market has left too many of us in Jeopardy.

The time has come for new solutions.

I don't have a problem with anyone making a profit, but greed has taken over the American health care industry.

Anonymous said...

lillith,

let the healhcare professionals deal with healthcare..let advocates sit on the sidelines - they not what they do

P.S.

I own pharmacy stocks..regulating healthcare will hurt the free market

Anonymous said...

you want national health -

Get ready for this:


LONDON (Reuters) - One in 10 patients admitted to National Health Service hospitals in Britain is unintentionally harmed and almost a million safety incidents, more than 2,000 of which were fatal, were recorded last year, according to a report on Thursday.
Such figures were "terrifying enough", the report by parliament's public accounts committee said, but the reality may be worse because of what it called "substantial under-reporting" of serious incidents and deaths in the NHS.

"To top it all, the NHS simply has no idea how many people die each year from patient safety incidents," Edward Leigh, the committee's chairman, said in a statement.

The committee found that some 974,000 patient safety incidents or "near misses", including 2,181 patient deaths, were recorded by the NHS but it stressed that under-reporting was a serious problem.

"(NHS) trusts estimated that on average around 22 percent of incidents and 39 percent of near misses go unreported, and that medication errors and incidents leading to serious harm are the least likely to be reported," the report said.

Leigh said the findings pointed to two "deep-seated failures": that of the NHS to secure accurate information on safety incidents and the failure "on a staggering scale" to learn from experience.

"Around 50 percent of all actual incidents might have been avoided if NHS staff had learned lessons from previous ones," Leigh said.

The report said it may take a decade or more systematically to improve safety in the NHS but that more immediate progress could be made with the introduction of electronic patient records which should reduce accidents caused by misinterpretation of doctors' handwriting.

The committee also criticized the National Patient Safety Agency, which was set up to improve safety across the National Health Service, saying there was a "question mark over the value for money" it offered.

Stephen Thornton, Chief Executive of the Health Foundation, a charity working to improve hospital safety, welcomed the committee's conclusion that more needed to be done but urged the government to provide more support.

"Hospitals need help to make sustainable, on-the-ground improvements and they need that help now," he said.

Anonymous said...

you want national health -

Get ready for this:


LONDON (Reuters) - One in 10 patients admitted to National Health Service hospitals in Britain is unintentionally harmed and almost a million safety incidents, more than 2,000 of which were fatal, were recorded last year, according to a report on Thursday.
Such figures were "terrifying enough", the report by parliament's public accounts committee said, but the reality may be worse because of what it called "substantial under-reporting" of serious incidents and deaths in the NHS.

"To top it all, the NHS simply has no idea how many people die each year from patient safety incidents," Edward Leigh, the committee's chairman, said in a statement.

The committee found that some 974,000 patient safety incidents or "near misses", including 2,181 patient deaths, were recorded by the NHS but it stressed that under-reporting was a serious problem.

"(NHS) trusts estimated that on average around 22 percent of incidents and 39 percent of near misses go unreported, and that medication errors and incidents leading to serious harm are the least likely to be reported," the report said.

Leigh said the findings pointed to two "deep-seated failures": that of the NHS to secure accurate information on safety incidents and the failure "on a staggering scale" to learn from experience.

"Around 50 percent of all actual incidents might have been avoided if NHS staff had learned lessons from previous ones," Leigh said.

The report said it may take a decade or more systematically to improve safety in the NHS but that more immediate progress could be made with the introduction of electronic patient records which should reduce accidents caused by misinterpretation of doctors' handwriting.

The committee also criticized the National Patient Safety Agency, which was set up to improve safety across the National Health Service, saying there was a "question mark over the value for money" it offered.

Stephen Thornton, Chief Executive of the Health Foundation, a charity working to improve hospital safety, welcomed the committee's conclusion that more needed to be done but urged the government to provide more support.

"Hospitals need help to make sustainable, on-the-ground improvements and they need that help now," he said.

Rob said...

I'm not sure that "socialized medicine" is the cure, but affordable health care for all should be a goal we can all wrap our heads around.

Emily said...

Rob,

I agree with you. I think the free market is a good thing in most cases, but we're living in a situation where the free market has driven the price up so much that most Americans can't afford health insurance or even basic health care.

My opinion is that health care is run by the insurance business and pharmaceutical companies instead of physicians and medical experts. I am grateful that my husband has excellent health insurance through is employment... but before that, we went for 6 years without health coverage, and just prayed that we would all stay healthy. I had little tiny kids at the time and we used county health department services for immunizations, and only went to see the family doctor when it was absolutely necessary. I am grateful that we didn't have more illness than we did. I especially feel for families who do not have health insurance who go through major health catastrophies - cancer or other life threatening illnesses.

I agree that we should not go straight to "socialized medicine" but we need to get creative about how we're going to fix this problem.

To those who feel healthcare is not a "right" - I don't know about that. I don't think it is fair to make people suffer unnecessarily and die prematurely just because they can't afford health insurance. I hope that America is more humane than that.

Anonymous said...

Emily,


I can tell you as a physician the biggest obstacle to affordable healthcare is the federal government.

When you look at payout rates for medicade and Medicare they are so low, that dr’s will drive fees up in other areas. I bet you didn’t know this but you could be sitting a dr’s office with a common cold (for example) – and waiting with you will be four other people with common colds. Two of those people will have health insurance; one is a Medicare patient and the last one has no insurance. Guess what – they all get billed differently, the 2 with insurance will get a reasonable rate because those folks are regular customers, the Medicare patient you bill what the govt gives you and the one without health insurance, you demand cash up front and charge that person a third more than your insured patients because that is where you make your money – this isn’t a big secret – this is a common formula among physicians – oh yes, the poor pay the most.

What is scary to me about the medical market place is how dr’s are turning away medicare patients and the uninsured – at my clinic; if you don’t have insurance you see a nurse practitioner or a resident. If you have Medicare or insurance a physician will see you. What is really scary is that several of my colleagues no longer accept Medicare patients – they believe that the federal government pays too little, so they refer Medicare patients to the residents and only see patients with private insurance. If the federal government paid market rates Medicare and medicade patients would be fine.

Drug companies are not the culprit either (for public disclosure I will admit I do consulting work for 3 drug companies) – companies put a lot of time and effort into the development of drugs…the people who develop these drugs don’t come cheap (MD’s & PhD’s) by the time a drug is developed, it will take up to 5 years for a firm to recoup it’s R&D costs on a drug. – and when the patent expires..poof you go generic and you loose you profit base…I won’t even begin to bore you with the time and money spent in the trial phase.

People need to look at healthcare not as a right – but as commodity – getting the government out of price fixing for certain rates will open more access for all.

Now the question of the uninsured – ways to fund healthcare for those folks would be the following:

1) An federal sin tax of 1% on cigarettes and alcohol
2) A federal sin tax of 1% on all prepared food (ie everything from Burger King to 5 star restraunts)
3) Tighter restrictions on WIC and food stamp recipients as to what they can purchase

These are just a few of my thoughts…people say dr’s overpaid – at the age 42 being in academic medicine I earn only a little over 250K a year – and I primarily treat the poor, If I was in private practice and I could pick and choose my patients, I’d make three times as much.

Anonymous said...

Average Utah phyiscan salaries:

Total Annual Compensation (base compensation, incentives and/or production):

Average Median
Anesthesiology $332,216 $300,000
Cardiology—Non-Invasive $300,625 $300,000
Emergency Medicine $246,760 $229,000
Family Practice $148,563 $135,000
Gastroenterology $282,000 $205,000
General Surgery $256,111 $240,000
Hospitalist $177,400 $182,000
Internal Medicine $158,500 $140,000
Neurology $218,867 $200,000
OB/GYN $221,286 $200,000
Oncology $226,875 $225,000
Orthopedic Surgery $319,000 $332,000
Otolaryngology $261,429 $245,000
Pathology $204,698 $156,000
Pediatrics $131,000 $124,000
Psychiatry $182,300 $170,000
Radiology $347,500 $300,000
Urology $320,714 $290,000