Virginia Democrat Calls For Forcing Doctors To Accept Medicare And Medicaid Patients

Wrabbit2000
reply to post by kaylaluv

 

I've never met a doctor that would work for nothing. Not one who isn't paid off on loans anyway. Seeing 6 figure debt for financing of the education is pretty well standard and expected for a Medical Doctor. Going 6 figures twice over, isn't unheard of.

They come out with a Mt. Everest of student debt and I don't personally want a doctor treating me to be chronically stressed over whether he can pay that each month while still supporting a family or what have you.

Heck, we see grown men, playing children's games making multi-millions a year in salary, and often enough, actually having a strike when the millions don't pile quite high ENOUGH to their liking. That, for game playing. (Or sports, as others call it). I wouldn't begrudge a Doctor his or her very comfortable living when their skills may well be what allows me to live at all some day.

The best doctors really don't care about the money...they have a passion for what they do and truly want to help people.

The best doctors I know (people I have worked with) work in hospitals that service low income people part time. Yes, they do other jobs as well...but they pretty much volunteer their time to give these people quality care.

They aren't hurting for money, they have talked about this idea that doctors are being screwed with the ACA and they literally laugh their asses off.

Now if you aren't familiar with top doctors and your experience is only with the doctors at small hospitals in rural areas...then that is your problem...these "doctors" are the worst doctors around as a rule. They are in these small hospitals quite frankly because they suck at their job...but they are the ones with the biggest egos and think they deserve high pay and respect.

Doctors are people...just like everyone else...they have a job to do and they should do it regardless of who they are providing their services to. Doctors should not be exempt from discrimination laws by picking and choosing which insurances they wish to accept.

reply to post by bjax9er

elitism?
no
it's called liberty.

do you have a right to a portion of my life and my labor?

no you don't, i'am not your slave.

What in the hell are you talking about?

IF you are a doctor and you are providing services, then you should be required to provide that service to ALL paying customers....including Medicaid and Medicare.

This is why the medical industry should, and eventually will, be strictly regulated.

reply to post by AlienScience


No one has to accept all paying customers like you are suggesting. I am surely not going to accept a customer that is "paying" me to work for a loss of money or barely any profit. No one would.

TKDRL
reply to post by AlienScience

 

No one has to accept all paying customers like you are suggesting. I am surely not going to accept a customer that is "paying" me to work for a loss of money or barely any profit. No one would.

edit on Sun, 03 Nov 2013 11:21:30 -0600 by TKDRL because: (no reason given)

It's called Freedom of choice.....not taken away from us yet...but well on it's way.

Des

reply to post by Destinyone


People have told me I should go work at walmart or burger king, or home hardware in moncton. What a joke! I looked into it, would not be a fulltime job, would be getting four hour shifts, and not even every day. Here is the break down, on a four hour day like that.

Drive an hour(if no traffic is hit)
Work 4 hours
Drive an hour

I would be making ~8 an hour
8x4=32

32-20 gas
12

I should be gone for at least 6 hours a day for a measly 12 bucks? Breaks down to 2 an hour..... That is insanity lol
In order for it to be worth it, I would have to be working at least 3 different part time jobs, and try to get them all to schedual around each other, plus each job want their part time employees on call in case someone calls in sick...... Not possible.

Overhead for running my construction company is bad enough, I don't need to rent out a building to do it. I would be curious to look at the doctor's books.

After reading through this whole thread all I can say is the medical situation in the US is a total mess. I believe a person has a right to charge fair value for their labor, even more if they are good enough and there is a demand. I also don't like the idea of people becoming sick and dying due to the lack of healthcare opportunity. Frankly our system is broken badly but I have no solution to offer to fix it.

I did see this which may be one of the reasons the left feels it's OK to force doctors to take medicare patients. It would sort of even out the doctors pay on the global playing field. Redistribution of wealth and all.


www.forbes.com...

eta - sorry, url embed won't work.

reply to post by Bassago


If I am reading that right, it is saying they earn 230,000 a year? Also is that net or gross?

reply to post by Bassago


Yes, it is a mess.

reply to post by TKDRL


Estimates are that by the end of 2015, 80% of all full time jobs, especially those in small privately owned companies, will be part time jobs. You can personally thank Obamacare for that. The new rules, requirements, and fines for not complying with the ACA are doing more to damage our economy than you can imagine. It's all part of the plan to push us towards a single payer plan.

I don't know where the hell they plan to get the funding to sustain the ACA...as to date it's heavily loaded with nonpaying medicare sign ups...approx 85% so far. The only next foreseeable step is a new tax levied on ANYONE who has a job to feed the monster this is.

Great incentives for those seeking employment...huh.....

Des

reply to post by kaylaluv

You are correct there will be growing pains, however there are a few thing that are not taken into consideration in the new law that everyone is not considering. Consider this, it takes a good 9 to 10 years from the time a person starts on that path to become a doctor, to being a doctor. And all the while there is the cost that the new doctor has to shoulder and burden. Estimate costs will be close to 200,000 dollars for the education alone. And that is not also including the cost for the person to live, housing food and other things for life.

Then there is the one little detail that is not discussed, and that is the insurance that a doctor has to cover, and that is a very pretty penny, to the tune of 300,000 dollars, along with having a lawyer on staff to represent said doctor. So now that the cost for being a doctor is up close to 600,000 dollars, there is nothing in the new law that covers any of those costs. And that is just the start of the nightmare under the new law.

If you have ever worked in any sector of the country, where there is government assistance, the first thing that you quickly find out, is that there is a lot of paperwork involved. There are forms that have to be filled out, and it all has to be double checked. And then said forms has to be submitted and filed, copied and taken care of. And with medicare and medicade, there is a lot of red tape that has to be navigated. And the government in its wisdom never gives an increase to the amount that they pay out, rather they tend to cut the amount time and time again and again.

To put it simply, you have 2 patients going into the ER for the same problem. One has private insurance and the other has government assistance. The cost of the visit is an estimated 8,000 dollars. The private insurance will have negotiated and worked with the doctor, and then have a set price as to what the patient will pay, let say 300. But with the government assistance, it is iffy that the doctor will get paid on a timely manner from the government, and often the payments are late, but the costs still have to be met.

The federal government has no real experience in running a business, and if history and the current state of things should be an indication, it cannot handle money responsibility. How is Amtrack doing, or Fannie May or Freddie Mac? Those are organizations are bankrupt and sucking money out of the country that is paid for by we the People, and we see no benefit from such.

The idea of affordable healthcare is a good one, make no mistake, but this new law is bad, very bad. It was badly written, badly passed, the acts that congress did to get it passed is criminal at worst. There was a way to get health insurance down fully and ultimately lowered the cost of health care and drugs at the same time. Remove the protections and the virtual monopolies that said companies hold over different states. Think about it, if big name pharamcutial companies had to actually fight to keep the market, do you think that the price of drugs would be so high, if another company could produce the exact same product for less cost? They would have to work twice as hard to provide the same services for less amount of money. The same can be said for the insurance companies. The sad part of the entire insurance and health care industry, is that if you look at automotive insurance, consider this: You can move from one state to another and keep your auto insurance policy, but you cannot keep your health insurance policy, or even be guaranteed that you can have the same company.

This chart is pretty illuminating

I was surprised.
Here is just some mean hourly wage examples:

liars $62.93
judges $49.26 (i call BS here, liars earn more than judges???)
paralegal $24.15
court reporter $25.48

head shrinkers $85.35 (Yeah I can attest that is ballpark)
pharmacict $55.27
physician and surgeon $91.38
anesthesiologists $111.94

Floor sander $17.13 (I do sanding and installing, ouch I picked the wrong trade lol)
Drywall and tapers $20.99
Electrician $25.50
Plumber $25.46
Construction laborer $16.58



Oh, keep in mind, the notes state this is GROSS, not NET pay. So still not a crystal clear picture.
I had thought it was net pay.

reply to post by Carreau


The problem here comes from healthcare having inelastic demand, which means normal supply/demand rules do not apply. When you are told you might die if you do not treat the health issue, you will still pay, whether the price is 5$ or 1000$ or even 10,000 $, you will find a way to pay for it, if there is otherwise you would die.

There is too much room to exploit the basic needs of people, the desperation of people who simply want to simply survive.

This is the reason why healthcare should a public service rather than private business and it needs to be regulated hard so doctors would not try to exploit desperate people for personal profit, for example by adding extra tests, which are not needed, on the subject, so he/she would have pay more, even though the particular test would have no use in diagnosis, or by adding additional pharmaceuticals without the need.

Round here every hospital is public. Doctors are paid reasonably well, around 2-3x the average salary. Although their salary is not influenced by how many drugs they subscribe (pharmaceutical sponsors are illegal) or by how many tests are done or whatever other factor, their salaries are fixed and can increase only due to working more but in no other way besides government raise.

Doctors and nurses should earn reasonably well, although there has to be a fine line to ensure people´s desperation and survival instinct are not used for personal profiteering.

reply to post by Cabin


Yeah but that also adds to different problems. Beuracracies who are not medical professionals getting to decide what is a necessary test or procedure. What is considered "experimental" and not covered. The same problems that already exist in insurance companies, I can see them getting way worse with government running it. They want more moneys for their death machines lol.. Even public service is in it for the money. They want to cut as many corners as possible.

TKDRL
reply to post by AlienScience

 

No one has to accept all paying customers like you are suggesting. I am surely not going to accept a customer that is "paying" me to work for a loss of money or barely any profit. No one would.

edit on Sun, 03 Nov 2013 11:21:30 -0600 by TKDRL because: (no reason given)

Healthcare is a unique business. We are literally talking about life or death here.

Let's say you are a lower-income person who can pay their bills, but is living paycheck to paycheck. One day, your 5-year-old daughter has a sudden severe asthma attack. She will die without immediate care. Every hospital and every doctor you take her to says, "pay $2400 now, please". You don't have $2400 -- you only have $24 in your pocket. What if your daughter died because no one was willing to treat her without getting paid the full amount that they charge? Is this the correct way for our society to behave?

Yes, I realize that emergency rooms turn no one away - but that's by law. The government has "dictated" that they can't. How many other businesses can you say that about? None that don't involve life or death situations.

reply to post by kaylaluv

You are right, but swinging the pendulum all the way to the other side is not good either. No one is going to want to run a business that just breaks even, or worse, runs in the red. If that starts happening all the hospitals and doctors close shop, and everyone dies.

I know what it's like to be uninsured, been that way all my life. I never been able to afford things like dental care. My teeth have been in shambles for years now, I spend money as I get it when I can to get stuff fixed. I got two teeth ready to break any moment, only thing I can do about it is eat asprin like candy.

kaylaluv
No biggie ..... they better get used to it now, because when we become single-payer, all citizens will be medicare/medicaid -- so the doctors will have to accept them anyway, or they will have zero patients. That won't be good for business.

Doctors don't have to stay in business.
They have degrees. They are pretty smart.
They can find other jobs that pay well.

We can't force them to work.
Half of the emergency rooms on border states have already shut down in the last 15 years because of the mandatory treatment laws.
Costs too much to run em for free.
Doctors will go work elsewhere.

Your next move will be mandatory assignment of doctors (by ones needs as decided by government.)

Good luck with that pancreatic cancer or COPD when your assigned doctor is a 24 year old intern who got his degree in Ixtapa.

TKDRL
reply to post by Cabin

 

Yeah but that also adds to different problems. Beuracracies who are not medical professionals getting to decide what is a necessary test or procedure. What is considered "experimental" and not covered. The same problems that already exist in insurance companies, I can see them getting way worse with government running it. They want more moneys for their death machines lol.. Even public service is in it for the money. They want to cut as many corners as possible.

This can be fixed quite easily. Round here doctors have quite open hands for tests. Although how many tests their patients do has zero influence on their salary, everything is covered by the government (from taxes). Doctor´s decide what tests are needed for their patients, government does not dictate it. Although their direct supervisors (head doctors) can ask from them about the reasons why tests are done, if some doctors ask for too many tests. Although haven´t heard some issue with that and so far for me personally nothing to complain either.

So far this has worked well, as the country´s national debt is among the lowest in the world (roughly 10% of GDP).

reply to post by AlienScience


Me?
What the hell are you talking about?

Healthcare is already the most regulated industry in America.

Have you read the 20,000 pages of regulations for obamacare?
Not to mention the 2000+ page law itself?
Has anyone read these regulations?

Have you read the 3,000 pages of regulations that come out every year for healthcare?

Do you know how much it costs a doctor to comply with Medicaid/Medicare?
How many people they must employ to deal with Medicaid/Medicare?
Do those employees require "benefits"?
What is their salary?

Who decides what a doctor gets paid for services rendered under Medicare/Medicaid?
It's not the doctor.

At some point government intrusion becomes unbearable.
And apparently that point has come.

But there are some jackwagons out there that think more regulation is needed. And that somehow those regulations will Change their minds.
And those same jackwagons think that forcing someone to do something they don't want to do, is somehow not slavery.

Democrats, the party of government,
The party of slavery,
The party of dredd Scott,
The party of segregation,
The party of internment,
The party anti civil rights, until they were for civil rights,
And now, once again, the party of slavery.

kaylaluv
One day, your 5-year-old daughter has a sudden severe asthma attack. She will die without immediate care. Every hospital and every doctor you take her to says, "pay $2400 now, please". You don't have $2400 -- you only have $24 in your pocket. What if your daughter died because no one was willing to treat her without getting paid the full amount that they charge? Is this the correct way for our society to behave?

This a valid point, how do we treat people in our society who cannot survive without the help of others? The other side of that coin is do we use force and make those who can help provide services? Make no mistake when government becomes involved it always comes down to force.

In the mandated scenario someone who is sick can force the doctor to help them. If the doctor refuses they could possibly be penalized by fines, lose of license or even imprisonment. That can only result in the deteriorating quality care and resembles nothing of the America I remember. Perhaps we should just trash the whole idea of freedom and get it over with because this is beginning to resemble the old Soviet Union model anyway. Look what happened to them.

reply to post by sdcigarpig


You are correct about the high education costs for doctors. The ole "socialist" in me says that education should be free, or low cost. I would be willing to pay more in taxes to make that happen, because I (and others) will ultimately benefit from it. It seems to work out well for other countries that have free/low cost education available to all.

Yes, the government has messed some things up, for sure. But without any kind of social security or medicare/medicaid programs, many, many people would have died miserable deaths -- so there has been "some" successes.

This new healthcare law is definitely not perfect, and is not the end-all, be-all for healthcare reform (at least I hope it isn't). It is a small step in the right direction - we need many more steps. Maybe in 20 years or so, we'll actually have a really good healthcare program, available to rich and poor alike.