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Doctors Unionize to Resist the Medical Machine

nytimes.com

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Re: Doctors Unionize to Resist the Medical Machine

#111

Post by dang »

Dr_tldr wrote: post #110
dang wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Talking about conflict of interest in general is fine, but making it be about one person is almost never fine. Egregious cases might be different, but to use it as a routine device in an argument is a personal attack and doesn't belong here. This is important because people on the internet are much too quick to jump to such conclusions about people they disagree with. See https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&prefix=tr…

Argh, I see your point, and I'm wrong. Even if I think that misleading-statement A stems from personal-interest/experience/bias B, bringing B into the discussion is a form of personal attack.

That's a great way of putting it that I'm not sure I've heard before. Thanks!

Re: Doctors Unionize to Resist the Medical Machine

#112

Post by Lordarminius »

merqurio wrote: post #12
sghodas wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hell, I'm only in my second year of med school in the US, and I wouldn't recommend young people go into this profession.

I'm in the last year and I would totally do it again. It's true college it's abusive( http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2016/01/physicians-arent-burned-... ), but I find it amazing as a career.

(MD here...)

With all due respect, wait until you have been in the profession for at least one decade. Then, I'd like to hear your opinion again.

Re: Doctors Unionize to Resist the Medical Machine

#113

Post by merqurio »

Lordarminius wrote: post #105
merqurio wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in the last year and I would totally do it again. It's true college it's abusive( http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2016/01/physicians-arent-burned-... ), but I find it amazing as a career.

(MD here...) With all due respect, wait until you have been in the profession for at least one decade. Then, I'd like to hear your opinion again.

I'm sure the work is super hard, and I will change my opinion, everybody said that to me, but at least academically, I found it amazing. :)

Re: Doctors Unionize to Resist the Medical Machine

#114

Post by gmarx »

merqurio wrote: post #27
marshray wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe you, but when I worked in a medical office in 1993 vendors were saying that exact same thing.

I know, I hope my Background as MD and CS plus the idea we had will make it different. We are working on something similar to an IDE :)

You sound like me and this sounds like software I created more than a decade ago. Good luck. It is an incredibly difficult sale (yes, I am a little bitter :))

Re: Doctors Unionize to Resist the Medical Machine

#115

Post by gmarx »

lucidrains wrote: post #29
marshray wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe you, but when I worked in a medical office in 1993 vendors were saying that exact same thing.

Cool, me too :) would be interested to hear more on what you are working on if you are in the city. (SF)

Me too and I am near SF. Would also be interested in talking

Re: Doctors Unionize to Resist the Medical Machine

#116

Post by gozur88 »

ZanyProgrammer wrote: post #42
hardcandy wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you consider to be ''absurd salaries''? A friend of mine is a hard working (50 hours/week) 35 year old GP in San Francisco and makes about $175k all-in, which is about the same as the average base + cash bonus (excluding options) of all our white collar friends (mostly software developers, but also some in finance and other fields). He left medical school with about $50k in student debt (very low relative to…

How is 175K not absurd? Only a white collar engineer in SF would say that's a piddly salary. Wake me up when your doctor friend has to commute in from Stockton.

It's not absurd because of the costs of becoming a doctor, both direct costs and opportunity costs. By the time heavily indebted doctors can hang out their shingles, professional peers have been working almost ten years, racking up a million dollars or so in gross earnings.

Re: Doctors Unionize to Resist the Medical Machine

#117

Post by falsestprophet »

secondtimeuse wrote: post #99
falsestprophet wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are accustomed to having foreign physicians, other-than-white physicians and certainly other-than-Anglo-Saxon physicians. Nearly 30% of US primary care physicians trained abroad. Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/12/health/12chen.html Only 8.7% of the US are descended from the English (Anglo-Saxons) Source: http://www.census.gov/prod/2004pubs/c2kbr-35.pdf That said, the US could easily recruit physicians…

Good luck with that, considering europe already gets huge number of physicians from India. http://www.ndtv.com/indians-abroad/india-biggest-exporter-of...

It doesn't follow that because many European physicians come from India that few European physicians would choose to work in the United States.

Re: Doctors Unionize to Resist the Medical Machine

#118

Post by hardcandy »

ubernostrum wrote: post #107
hardcandy wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Malpractice insurance rates are not tied to malpractice award amounts? Unless rates were fixed by law and financially guaranteed by the Government, how on earth would that even be possible. Are you just a troll?

Malpractice awards tend to grow at a rate slightly higher than inflation. Malpractice insurance premiums, however, grow at a far higher -- sometimes double-digit -- rate, and do so even when malpractice judgments are capped by law. If the premiums were simply rising because of the amount of money given in a malpractice judgment, we would not see that. Therefore, malpractice premiums are not -- in any meaningful sense…

Do you realize that many hospitals and surgical specialties self-insure themselves? e.g. large groups of orthopods and neurosurgeons will get together and form a co-op with a few attorneys and operate as a self-insurance vehicle, because they are able to gauge risks better than others. Premiums and judgments are way more connected than you are implying.

Re: Doctors Unionize to Resist the Medical Machine

#119

Post by ubernostrum »

hardcandy wrote: post #118
ubernostrum wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Malpractice awards tend to grow at a rate slightly higher than inflation. Malpractice insurance premiums, however, grow at a far higher -- sometimes double-digit -- rate, and do so even when malpractice judgments are capped by law. If the premiums were simply rising because of the amount of money given in a malpractice judgment, we would not see that. Therefore, malpractice premiums are not -- in any meaningful sense…

Do you realize that many hospitals and surgical specialties self-insure themselves? e.g. large groups of orthopods and neurosurgeons will get together and form a co-op with a few attorneys and operate as a self-insurance vehicle, because they are able to gauge risks better than others. Premiums and judgments are way more connected than you are implying.

Premiums and judgments are way more connected than you are implying.

There is a belief on the part of many people that massive, bank-breaking, out-of-control, $BIGNUM malpractice judgments are common and that this is the reason why premiums have skyrocketed.

This belief is not borne out by the facts, which are that malpractice awards increase, on average, about 3% more than inflation, and that even in states with "here's a nickel, sorry we killed your spouse"-type caps on judgments the premiums have continued to rise far out of proportion to the amounts of the judgments.

Re: Doctors Unionize to Resist the Medical Machine

#120

Post by lenkite »

digbyloftus wrote: post #94
crdoconnor wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I mean, the difference between "resist management giving themselves millions while cutting pay for workers" and "price fixing/restrict competition" is just an arbitrary, subjective distinction based on your opinion on how much money people should make. Who would you prefer was paid more? Your doctor or his non-medical MBA manager?

Whichever leads to the best, most efficient medical industry and provides myself as a consumer with the most value.

According to the MBA manager, most efficient = most profits. And most value = more tests and more expenses by the 'consumer'. Looks like you are on with the Kool Aid!
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