>> Before long you will enjoy the privilege of making an appointment not with your choice of physician, but with a hospital clinic or practice to be seen by whatever physician is "on" that day. She will be a wage earner who will go home at 5pm and not dirty her refined medical mind with discussions of money, since she has nothing to do with that side of things.

I started doing that years ago. We have several walk-in clinics here and they're terrific.
I never wait more than a half hour before seeing someone and there's never "Oh..the doctor is handling an emergency at the hospital so you'll have to wait an hour."
Many of the people I see are nurse practitioners.
Do I really need someone with a medical degree to clear out my earwax?




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>>>But where did that notion come from? Have you watched the big Pharma ads on TV lately?
>>>Guess who prescribes that stuff?
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>Sheesh Bill- ask yourself why big pharma is advertizing to the general public rather than only to physicians if physicians are the ones generating the demand.
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> Will you be satisfied if the incomes of waged physicians are independent of the treatments they prescribe?
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Definitely a good idea. Also, jail time for any of them who take money from big pharma.

>>>Maybe you can explain how [Michelle Obama] helped save the lives of those people you mentioned who are not sacks of wheat?
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>Nepotism and sinecures were normal practice amongst the 1% throughout living memory. Even the middle classes do it - internships, holiday jobs and networking is offered first to the scions of small businesses all over the US. My advice- let it go. A sinecure for Michelle rather than some other 1%er is chump change and a distraction when there's a $47T medicare deficit that people refuse to acknowledge.

My point was not about nepotism.
You posed the spectre of political hacks running the health care system.
They already do.
Here in NJ, every single hospital CEO is a political hack with absolutely no medical experience.