<<<You have completely missed the point. It is not about compensation but rather about the drive to be in medicine and to see patients. If your drive is stricly financial, then there is no way you are a good doctor because you will simply increase your income by seeing patients one after the other without spending any quality time with the patient to really figure out what is wrong rather than simply reading the result from a test that you ordered>>>
Croumagnon, I am a lawyer who has a drive to do law, advocate for clients and pursue their rights. The reality is, however, although this was part of what drew me to practice law, after just a few years of practice one learns, very quickly, that one gets compensated for their time, effort, risk, etc., from one's work or one goes to an early grave.
Being a doctor is no different. Who is going to pay for their student loans? Their overhead? Their capital investments? For their working 80-100 hour weeks, putting up with years of internship? Only to see that they make no more money, then say, an accountant with just a 4 year degree.
Further, those doctors who are more talented, who work more hours, who push the envelope of care etc., will suddenly find out they are not making any more money, and yet they are still being sued by their patience for malpractice (one aspect of cost control that Obama has not addressed AT ALL {hint: trial lawyers are a big and powerful group within the Democratic party})
Sorry, these guys all love the medical work they do but they are not going to work 80 hours a week, et al., like any other human being, if all they get is a mediocre, basically socialized fee.
Lets put it this way, if Congress wants to give FREE healthcare to 50 million uninsured individuals (the majority of which make enough money to buy their own care anyways and choose not to, and about 10-15 million illegal immigrants) then where are we going to get enough doctors to treat them all?
Hmmm, I know, lets cut their fees even more, that always increased demand to want to produce.
Human nature is such that those who produce more, even if they love what they do, want to be compensated more, they don't want to have to struggle financially, be burdened by 80 hour weeks, forced to see patient after patient after patient with no respite and no quality as this bill will force down their throat, and they want to be differentiated for their efforts. A renowned brain surgeon is not going to continue what he does in a great fashion if he finds that a GP passing out penicillin shots is making nearly as much. SORRY.
That is what happens when you socialize anything. You destroy its quality, and you destroy the supply of people providing the service. Which of course creates the need to ration, and ratchet down more and more. Such as the required "end of life counseling" in the House bill. Also, it is not even thinly veiled, the "public option" is intended as the only option. If it was not, then why did the bill contain language that you can keep your existing insurance, but if you lose your job or want to change insurance your only option is to buy into the public option.
I don't need to go into an entire essay, but your analysis is dangerously flawed. I know it is well intentioned, but such well intentioned feelings have caused great misery in the world when systematically implemented and destroyed more wealth and lives then about anything else I can think of.
Tinker
AI
