>>>I've suggested (among a lot of other things) that MD's were in bed with big pharma and I still that that that's true.
>>>At least here in Hamilton, NJ, the MD's I see just don't make enough money from their practices so they have to find other ways to pay the rent. Last year I had a >>pretty serious health bout (happy to say that I won) and my MD spent a lot of time with me in the hospital.
>>>I saw what Medicare paid him and I make more money doing a couple of simple SSRS reports than he did while saving my life.
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>I used to think it was Oscar Wilde who quipped "beware the poor physician" but I can't find the quotation now. It's still true but perhaps as a testament to honor, a majority of young MDs chooses not to fleece the system but to opt for salaried status. No longer are MDs the epitome of small businesspeople/partnerships who can innovate for the benefit of local communities; now they are waged shift workers who play no part in billing (so can wring their hands virtuously about costs without pressure to sacrifice their own income) and can head off at end of shift with "the system" responsible for any unmet clinical need. I've seen that elsewhere and it's a tragedy that I think now is past the tipping point in the US too.
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>>>Insurers, as you point out, have a perverse incentive. The more hospitals spend the more they make.
>>>As I've pointed, hospitals have become money pumps for political hacks.
>>>The CEO of a local hospital was formerly a dem political leader here in Mercer county. That's the norm now.
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>That's the American Big Business way.
No it isn't.
MD's aren't making widgets.
Widgets come and go but people's needs for health care don't.
Smart communities decide that they need good schools and they do what's necessary to assure that teachers' financial and other needs are met.
We can do that with MD's.
We just haven't tried hard enough.