Jim;

I think the term “socialized” puts fear into a “real Americans” heart! That word represents everything that Capitalism is not. Capitalism allows greed, power, control, maximizing profits, buy offs, and many other dollar making schemes. Imagine if the Health Care system had to be accountable and anyone could do anything to improve it? When lots of fingers are allowed to be in the pie you pay more and get less.

The people with the most money have lobbyists who influence our political system when it makes decisions about medical care. Today that is the Medical Insurance and Pharmaceutical Companies.

A free market system according to our form of Capitalism solves all problems. We can see what a success that is. If you are getting rich from the Medical Industry then everything is all right. If you are not then keep paying. We are little more than sheep.

Tom


>You've done a great job of describing how a simple thing has been turned into a nightmare for doctors who, for the most part, get into the field because they want to make people whole because they CARE.
>
>I just want to comment that "government running health care" is not nearly as bad as you make it sound. Maybe the propaganda machine on the issue has people there convinced that it is a hearthbeat away from communism (and we all know how the propaganda worked so effectively on that issue).
>In fact the bulk of our healthcare management is run by medically trained people. They do have to work within a budget and economic conditions over the last several years have meant that those budgets are smaller than they need to be.
>But let me tell you, there are NO HMO CLERKS authorizing or refusing procedures. There are no fights with insurance companies nor tons of paper work that varies by insurance company. I've just done some work on computerized healthcare billing (claims) for a practice. The job itself was daunting but in fact the final operating mechanism is simple and smooth.
>It is commonly accepted that Canada's average medical administrative costs are less than half what they average in the states. All that care of your beancounting government employed clerks/managers!
>
>Really, you Yanks are far too afraid of the word "socialized", and because of that you stand as the only major country of the world that still lets so many of its people suffer needlessly and die prematurely.
>
>
>regards
>
> >You got that right about the freakin' insurance companies.
>>I disagree about doctors incorporating, though. Those issues go back to administators who typically are not doctors, but businessmen. And doctors themselves are notoriously bad at business.
>>
>>My father-in-law is considered by many physicians in here in Texas to be one of the best general surgeons and diagnosticians in the state. He has been asked to sit in on incompetency hearings for others of his profession for whom he had no problem recommending liscencectomies. This year, many deserving people in the area are losing one of the best surgeons around because of 1 major factor: malpractice insurance rose to nearly $200,000.00 for the year (and is predicted to go close to $300K next year). He was a partner in his own small practice - 2 doctors, 3 nurses, 2 office staff - and worked 70-80 hours a week at least. For the first several months of this year, after paying his business expenses (staff etc.), he brought home about the same as a minimum wage half-time employee would gross if he brought home anything at all.
>>
>>Are there imcompetent physicians? Yes. But more than any other profession, the good ones are ready, willing and able to weed the bad ones out.
>>
>>Do doctors make mistakes and people die? Yes. Should they be sued for malpractice when they make mistakes and someone dies, needlessly loses a limb, or suffers other preventable problems? Yes. But malpractice insurance has not gone up at the rate it has because of this. It has gone up because idiots who got bigger scars than they thought they would have after surgery sued for damages, which lawyers more than happily jumped on and pumped up to millions, and which judges and juries found appropriate.
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>>I wonder how many of those 100,000 that doctors supposedly kill are killed because the doctors are not allowed to give the kind of care necessary to due to HMO or other insurance policies.
>>
>>I personally don't want the government to be involved in running health care not because I support big business, but because I am a logical human being: lawyers and accountants are not doctors and nurses and as such should not be allowed to make medical decisions. Hell, they can barely run the government.