what would happen if all Doctors, lawyers, and other top paid professions...

a reply to: CulturalResilience

Once the government, any government starts taxing, then it is close to impossible to reverse it.


Just look at the US.

The very thought that medical entitlement programs might be cut has caused rioting, shootings, death threats.

It's not that I am not in favour of private contracting of government services. As long as those contractors provide a comparable level of service for the money, and that has not happened in the UK. The services, have deteriorated, they have become more costly, and the overall tax burden for the likes of me has increased. Perhaps the private sector can deliver quality and efficient services in the US, but they do not do it here in The UK.

a reply to: DBCowboy

a reply to: CulturalResilience

Problem here is, they are trying to change our system into yours.

They're trying to eliminate privatization.

originally posted by: OccamsRazor04
a reply to: one4all

You sound serious ... but i can't imagine anyone advocating for a person to get appendectomy instructions from youtube ....

I am not advocating anyone do anything....simply discussing possibilities.

I really don't see how that could work. Our two countries have the complete opposite attitude to state service provision.
a reply to: DBCowboy

originally posted by: CulturalResilience
I really don't see how that could work. Our two countries have the complete opposite attitude to state service provision.
a reply to: DBCowboy

And now you see why there is such discord here.

There's no compromise when there is such a polarity of thought.

I hope it works out for the best for you whichever way it ends up going. Perhaps our government contractors could take some lessons from yours. I have seen so much treasured national infrastructure sacrificed to the shameless profit motive of government contractors.

I have spent most of my working life in the Ministry Of Defence in various roles and the worst thing about these defence contractors, other than the number of current and former ministers on their respective boards of directors, is the number of former high ranking military officers, who have their huge pensions, and yet are still profiting from the outsourcing as shareholders in these companies.

Many of those former military officers actually oversaw the outsourcing of the defence organisations they had responsibility for, and joined their boards when it was completed. It is disgraceful and should never have been allowed to happen. I would have had them charged with treason if I could.

a reply to: DBCowboy

originally posted by: luciferslight
what would happen if all Doctors, lawyers, and other top paid professions were paid by the government. Then made those services free to the public? idk.

I had to waste my cell data for this?
Your title could have had the entire thought, but instead you made it into click bait.

a reply to: one4all

Googled heart atta......

Damn! Doesn't work if you're unconscious.


Me: Siri! I just cut off my hand!

Siri: "I've found these locations for Honey Baked Ham".

I am all for universalized health care. I mean, we are already paying two different federal taxes as it is on our labor. Lets just bump it up a smidge, and eliminate private insurance industry. So instead of our $$$ going into shareholder dividends to companies who try as hard as possible to reduce what they are actually charging us to pay for, profits generated from a federal trust would simply roll back into the healthcare pool.

I don't understand some people logic. like "omg taxes oh no's!!!!" and yet there is no problem with funding public fire departments, libraries, police, and quality control inspections for air and water. I think people against such taxing and socialist conspiracies should just sit and watch their house burn down when there is a fire instead of calling publicly funded fire department. Or perhaps better yet, seek to make firefighting a private industry. Imagine how a call to a private firefighting department would go?

"This is 9/11 dispatch, we have a three alarm fire out an apartment complex! Please send ...
Thank you for calling your local #1 firefighting service! If you have proof of insurance for said structure, please press one now. If you are calling about a medical emergency, please press 2 and have insurance ready! If you do not have private insurance of any kind or with at least a $10,000 deductible, please hang up and die. Stop stealing our resources, you low life, parasitic, scum of the Earth, worthless non-human! How dare you expect any kind of compassion or assistance without first lining the pockets of our CEO's and shareholders!"

Real working people fight their own fires, solve all their own crimes, and do not read ever! Thats how true freedom should be! Being in a coma due to being violently beaten in a robbery is no excuse for not solving your own crime! Being a six year old in poverty is no excuse for you being unable to have books to read! Be a hard working parent of kids with pre existing birth defects is no excuse to not have enough money to have your own firefighting contingencies when your house in on fire!

Stop being such a #ing parasitic drain on our society, and learn to just steal from others legally and receive tax payer subsidies the right way, by being a rich multi-bilion dollar corporation!! Dummy!

Or just own a small business and hypocritically claim that you get nothing from the government and then use the police and firefighting services when needed, as well as have their accountants reduce their tax burden as much as possible. Does our water smell like sulfur or air look like the Fourth for July every day? If not, you can thank world ending, apocalypse inducing government services and the blight to society which is taxes.

I don't understand why systems that are proven to work and continue to work in everyone of our allied nations, and rival ones as well that provide quality healthcare to their citizens is such an armageddon inducing philosophy in America. Its truly, flabergasting

originally posted by: worldstarcountry
I am all for universalized health care. I mean, we are already paying two different federal taxes as it is on our labor. Lets just bump it up a smidge, and eliminate private insurance industry. So instead of our $$$ going into shareholder dividends to companies who try as hard as possible to reduce what they are actually charging us to pay for, profits generated from a federal trust would simply roll back into the healthcare pool.

I don't understand some people logic. like "omg taxes oh no's!!!!" and yet there is no problem with funding public fire departments, libraries, police, and quality control inspections for air and water. I think people against such taxing and socialist conspiracies should just sit and watch their house burn down when there is a fire instead of calling publicly funded fire department. Or perhaps better yet, seek to make firefighting a private industry. Imagine how a call to a private firefighting department would go?

"This is 9/11 dispatch, we have a three alarm fire out an apartment complex! Please send ...
Thank you for calling your local #1 firefighting service! If you have proof of insurance for said structure, please press one now. If you are calling about a medical emergency, please press 2 and have insurance ready! If you do not have private insurance of any kind or with at least a $10,000 deductible, please hang up and die. Stop stealing our resources, you low life, parasitic, scum of the Earth, worthless non-human! How dare you expect any kind of compassion or assistance without first lining the pockets of our CEO's and shareholders!"

Real working people fight their own fires, solve all their own crimes, and do not read ever! Thats how true freedom should be! Being in a coma due to being violently beaten in a robbery is no excuse for not solving your own crime! Being a six year old in poverty is no excuse for you being unable to have books to read! Be a hard working parent of kids with pre existing birth defects is no excuse to not have enough money to have your own firefighting contingencies when your house in on fire!

Stop being such a #ing parasitic drain on our society, and learn to just steal from others legally and receive tax payer subsidies the right way, by being a rich multi-bilion dollar corporation!! Dummy!

Or just own a small business and hypocritically claim that you get nothing from the government and then use the police and firefighting services when needed, as well as have their accountants reduce their tax burden as much as possible. Does our water smell like sulfur or air look like the Fourth for July every day? If not, you can thank world ending, apocalypse inducing government services and the blight to society which is taxes.

I don't understand why systems that are proven to work and continue to work in everyone of our allied nations, and rival ones as well that provide quality healthcare to their citizens is such an armageddon inducing philosophy in America. Its truly, flabergasting

Meet the Ferengi run corporation called the US aka greed incorporated and selfish llc.

I have a better question: what would happen if doctors and lawyers and some other professions only got paid when they actually did their job and succeeded?

lawyers get paid whether they win the case or lose it, doctors get paid whether the patient lives or dies, weather men get paid whether they guess the forecast for next day or are totally wrong.

imagine if your auto mechanic got paid even if he replaced parts but it didn`t fix your car,imagine if farmers got paid for growing and selling inedible food,imagine if your plumber got paid for doing work that didn`t stop your leak.

it`s always been a pet peeve of mine that certain professions get paid just for trying,but if you`re a plumber and go to a lawyers house to fix a water leak and charge him $1,000 but the water is still leaking he will think you`re a crook or a con man.

I guess getting paid for just trying must be an extension of getting a medal for just participating,but it seems like only the high paying professions are privileged enough to get paid for just trying,like politicians, lawyers, doctors,etc

but the little guys like auto mechanics, plumbers, electricians etc, have to actually fix the problem in order to get paid.

Some people speak without really saying anything. Why is that? IDK.

originally posted by: Tardacus
I have a better question: what would happen if doctors and lawyers and some other professions only got paid when they actually did their job and succeeded?

lawyers get paid whether they win the case or lose it, doctors get paid whether the patient lives or dies, weather men get paid whether they guess the forecast for next day or are totally wrong.

imagine if your auto mechanic got paid even if he replaced parts but it didn`t fix your car,imagine if farmers got paid for growing and selling inedible food,imagine if your plumber got paid for doing work that didn`t stop your leak.

it`s always been a pet peeve of mine that certain professions get paid just for trying,but if you`re a plumber and go to a lawyers house to fix a water leak and charge him $1,000 but the water is still leaking he will think you`re a crook or a con man.

I guess getting paid for just trying must be an extension of getting a medal for just participating,but it seems like only the high paying professions are privileged enough to get paid for just trying,like politicians, lawyers, doctors,etc

but the little guys like auto mechanics, plumbers, electricians etc, have to actually fix the problem in order to get paid.

Doesn't Japan or China have such a system?

a reply to: worldstarcountry
You may not be aware but there are literally millions of us who are protected by volunteer firefighters in departments financed by donations.
There are also millions of us who pay our doctors out of our own pockets. No insurance. We negotiate the best price for the best service.
There was a time in our history, within living memory when a doctor set his/her own fees. They knew their patients and mostly knew the financial condition of their patients and set their fees accordingly. But that was in pre-Medicare days when doctors would actually come to your home if you were sick. I can remember quite clearly that the doc who came to my grandparents' house would reduce his fee if he had several folks in the neighborhood to visit. His standard fee was $5 but if others in the neighborhood were ill it might go as low as $2 for the house call. Heck, he would accept produce instead of monetary fees.

My solution to the problem would be to constrain insurance policies to catastrophic coverage. Your car insurance doesn't cover oil changes and new tires. Your homeowner's insurance doesn't cover the costs of painting your home or having pest control services.

Basic health and nutrition classes in the public school system would go a long way toward helping people understand that in the final analysis, we are the best keepers of our own health.

originally posted by: diggindirt
a reply to: worldstarcountry
You may not be aware but there are literally millions of us who are protected by volunteer firefighters in departments financed by donations.
There are also millions of us who pay our doctors out of our own pockets. No insurance. We negotiate the best price for the best service.
There was a time in our history, within living memory when a doctor set his/her own fees. They knew their patients and mostly knew the financial condition of their patients and set their fees accordingly. But that was in pre-Medicare days when doctors would actually come to your home if you were sick. I can remember quite clearly that the doc who came to my grandparents' house would reduce his fee if he had several folks in the neighborhood to visit. His standard fee was $5 but if others in the neighborhood were ill it might go as low as $2 for the house call. Heck, he would accept produce instead of monetary fees.

My solution to the problem would be to constrain insurance policies to catastrophic coverage. Your car insurance doesn't cover oil changes and new tires. Your homeowner's insurance doesn't cover the costs of painting your home or having pest control services.

Basic health and nutrition classes in the public school system would go a long way toward helping people understand that in the final analysis, we are the best keepers of our own health.

Now THAT is an intelligent idea! # BRILLIANT!

if there was such a thing as government intelligence this wouldn't be a discussion because your idea would probably be implemented already with fees adjusted according to current economic conditions of course.

originally posted by: diggindirt
There are also millions of us who pay our doctors out of our own pockets. No insurance. We negotiate the best price for the best service.

I get that. However, there are also those in your community who have the misfortune of requiring specialists for very complicated conditions. Unless they are pensioners still covered by the vestiges of long retired industries, I am guessing you are aware of some in your community yourself.

a reply to: Tardacus

imagine if your auto mechanic got paid even if he replaced parts but it didn`t fix your car,imagine if farmers got paid for growing and selling inedible food,imagine if your plumber got paid for doing work that didn`t stop your leak.

Holy smokes, does not this happen every day in America with the free market system?? Is that not why so many upset husbands of ripped off housewives and retired seniors somehow got places like he Better Business Bureau into existence; because of this very shady type of business practices by jackass con artists today, who steal their money and still get paid for nothing?? At least there is internal recourse by the people .

it`s always been a pet peeve of mine that certain professions get paid just for trying,but if you`re a plumber and go to a lawyers house to fix a water leak and charge him $1,000 but the water is still leaking he will think you`re a crook or a con man.

For $1,000 that water leak better be requiring jackhammers and re-tiling. Would hate to learn an independent contractor is trying to socialize his way into a man's wallet just because he himself is well paid!

originally posted by: Tardacus
I have a better question: what would happen if doctors and lawyers and some other professions only got paid when they actually did their job and succeeded?

lawyers get paid whether they win the case or lose it...

Because the objective isn't to win or lose, it's to ensure that the court is capable of reaching the correct decision by having all relevant evidence and arguments presented for its consideration.

The government pays me to represent people, because most of my clients have no money and would not be able to represent themselves. "Losing" is often the correct outcome for the situation, but it's important for society that every person has the chance to have their case put before the court in the most effective way possible. Take that away and you are damaging society as much as the individual client. If you're paying by result, nobody will do it - especially in my field, where the "success rate" averages around 8% due to the nature of the work.

Incidentally, to reflect back on the original post: as a lawyer who gets paid by the government, the correct answer is that "it sucks and drives away talent". After the most recent changes, I'm cutting back on that line of work and intend to move out of it completely. Plenty of other people want to give me money; I do what I do because I believe it's good and necessary, but I'm not prepared to end up in the poorhouse as a result.

Doctors would also be disadvantaged. You don't need a surgeon when you are physically well and healthy, you see them when you are ill - sometimes critically so. Do you really want a society where surgeons won't operate unless they are guaranteed to be able to save them? Or do you intend to force them to work for free?

Not every profession has a clear win/loss situation. Some patients are going to die regardless of the quality of the medical treatment. Why punish the surgeon because Jo Smith decided to wrap his car around a tree and didn't have the courtesy to die before he got to the operating theatre?

a reply to: luciferslight

eeewww we would be commies lol .
I swear .And then the doctors would be overwhelmed from everybody coming over every little thing then they would quit and then we have no good doctors.

originally posted by: DJMSN
a reply to: one4all

Sure...common sense and Goggle. The first place I go when I need a Doctor is You Tube. WaHoo9 has a wonderful video on how to do an appendectomy. And when I need a lawyer, I turn to Duperstation 14 and Gerald's Dairies for advice on how to make the Illinois Lottery pay out my winning Power Ball ticket which they say they can't pay because they are broke so the ticket is null and void. Common sense and Google to the rescue.

I'm a lawyer and I encourage everyone to try to duplicate my four years of college, three years of law school and 25 years of experience by doing a 20 second search on the internet.

I've made a lot of money - a *lot* of money - off people doing things themselves from the internet and screwing themselves twice as badly than if they just came to me in the first place. Often what I could have done in ten minutes initially, they screw up so badly it becomes a ten or twenty thousand dollar fix.

When a prospective client tells me "I got this form off the internet..." it's like the sound of a cash register going off.

I suspect it's the same for doctors.