>>>>>>>>>>>"health care is NOT a right"
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>that marks you as a savage Kevin. You want to live a "devil take the hindmost" society .
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>Health care cannot be a right for the simple fact that care is provided by people. If one has a "right" to care then one has a right to service from another person. You cannot resolve the civil rights of the provider with the right to care of the patient.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>We co-operate and live in a society for some benefit.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>No one is arguing otherwise.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>I call Kevin a savage not in a derogatory way
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>How do the kids say it...oh puh-leese!
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>but to mark the fact that he doesn't believe in society and , I suppose, neither do you.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>I believe one's labor and its fruits belong to the individual, not the community and not the State. Thus, I believe in a free society. I suppose you do not.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>That's pretty Darwinian -- the more capable can keep everything they make and the rest can go hang. I agree with Nick that a civilized society should not operate on that basis.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>We do not live in "should" land. We live in a country of laws and this is a question of freedom and are we going to have any. If so, one must allow citizens to make decisions with which we disagree. If we're to be free property rights, must be preserved because without them other rights are meaningless. We are already dangerously close to forced labor with the current laws regarding mandatory care in emergency rooms. I do not believe we've overstepped the line yet as the requirement is limited to emergency rooms and no one is forced to work there. However, should we mandate medical care to all, while dictating compensation for the provider, we will have further damaged our right to private property, namely our own labor and its fruit.
>>>>>
>>>>>This thing about doctors being enslaved or forced into labor by health coverage for the currently uninsured keeps coming up. Is it something going around on conservative talk radio or in the blogosphere? It seems like quite a reach to me.
>>>>
>>>>Medical residency program mandated for any new doctor is a good example of working slavery already practiced in US hospitals located predominantly in urban areas. Hopefully, you know few things how and why medical residents work in these conditions.
>>>
>>>Sure. They see the big money down the road. New associates in law firms, who are also worked like dogs, operate on the same principle. Still, no one is forcing them to do it. And I don't see how having more insured Americans would enslave any doctor.
>>
>>It is not the same for doctors and lawyers. Lawyer graduates have choice: they can take easy route, i.e. less work and less money. Doctors do not have this choice, so accusing them in chasing big money is just unfair.
>
>I'm not accusing them, just saying I think I understand why they agree to do it. There is also the learning factor. I sure wouldn't want a doctor straight out of med school operating on me, or even trying to diagnose what is wrong with me. Better that they watch a few and then do a few under supervision.
>
>Ambitious lawyers -- and isn't that most of them? -- want to start with a big, prestigious firm, and that's how those firms operate. You work outrageous hours and the partners make a ton of money on you. Again, though, the young lawyer sees him or herself in that partner office some day, getting it all back and more. Management consulting firms, same deal.

I had surgery last November and it was a rather new type of surgery. The surgeon had two other surgeons in the OR observing. Some types of surgeries require that the surgeon observer so many procedures first and then perform it themselves so many times under supervision. Especially with newer procedures. When I signed off on the permission for the surgery, there was a paragraph in there about other surgeons 'observing' for learning purposes. I agreed of course. However, when the bills came in, I was charged the going rate for each of those doctors who observed! There was no mention of renumeration for their observing in the OR in the document I signed. The insurance company at first refused to pay for those additional 'observers.' I had to file numerous complaints as well as documentation showing the benefits of doctors observing surgeries and how it saves the insurance companies $ down the road. Eventually they decided to pay the cost (just this month). And of course, the surgeons observing wouldn't consider not charging to 'learn.'

By the way, they usually get around it by listing the observing doctors as 'assistant surgeons' and then as long as they touch any medical instrument, they are authorized renumeration. So the primary surgeon will typically have the assistant do minor (typical) parts of the surgery.