Ya know as much as I think as the richest and strongest nation in the world that we should find a way to provide quality care for all our real and "legal" citizens (Canada does not provide care for illegals last I looked) nothing says that PCP's and others took an oath of poverty just for the privialge of providing that care. My Brother Josh is a Psychiatrist and before he died my dad saw Josh become a private practice shrink and Nancy half way thru med school. He was a liberal lefty Jew for the Bronx. But I always remember what he said about why all docs deserve a certain amount of decent pay.
Basically he said nobody remembers how many years while studing and training that these folks who are obviously very smart in Math and the Sciences, missed out on making, saving and investing money for their own future; 5-10 extra years of real lost income to become high quality doctors between, pre-med, med school, and residency. They're all smart and hard working enough that any doc could have had any number of good paying jobs during that "lost" wage earning period. They deserve to be paid well when they are done because 25% of that is really nothing more than a form of "make up" pay for lost wages and the interest on those lost wages for all those extra years of training.
Ya see it's not just being left of center, but being pro-labor and an activist for the working man that makes for a well balanced lefty and I'm proud to be such. Doctors are "working" men too and they need to realize that and organize and fight as such. Too many of you folks (mostly specialists now I think) are too arrogent to admit this to yourselves, no less outwardly. Docs need to see themselves as working folks and join up with them and work together for reforms that are good for all, including working docs and other healthcare workers. Get it?
Imagine being a school teacher who can go to work with a BA while earing their masters usually, all while getting paid OK and having full Bennies too. Can't go to night school part-time while still working your day gig for Med School like half the lawyers in NYC did at John Jay College. Think of all those years of good wages the doctors missed out on....
But back to the oath of poverty and the milk. Providers should be paid just as well as a SuperMarket. They charge a real charge based on market factors in their area, get paid the same from any and all comers and whether someone walks in with some form of assistance for the payment of their services, doesn't matter a darn. They charge and get paid exactly the same. Right now, it is the providers who are financing healthcare for the poor by being paid so terribly by the gov't.
The foodstamps really is a better model for paying private service providers for providing care or service for those who need assistance. If we as a society want to provide care for any and all comers, then we need to find the national will to also pay for it. Now I believe that a lot of that funding already exsists, it's just going to greedy Corporate officers and shareholders at UHC and all the other for profit and many not for profit, but not charitable, insurance carriers. We could probably pay for care for almost all our real citizens and provide a decent and level form of pay for our providers if we took that money and applied it to care instead of corporate pay and waste. Those studies have been done already and the numbers are there to support such switching of priorities.
I just went off-roading "wheelin" with my Full Size Jeep club this weekend in southeast PA, near Harrisburg at Rausch creek. The park is land that used to be part of the coal industry. We were just about camping on the remains of coal and my kids looked like two troggladites, I swear. I am still sneezing out coal dust a day later. The stuff is incidious, it gets everywhere. I say this because you can't help but think about the hardworking guys who mine this stuff while being there. Just imagine only 40 years ago while the United Mine Workers were still fighting their battles for standards and saftey what it must have been like living and working in the company town, shopping at the company store and living and working around these places. It's unreal how it just gets into everything. Even those who didn't work in the mines but lived in the area must have gotten health issues from it. No less we still need better standards even today (a moment of silence for our fallen workers). Every years thousands of workers in the US don't come home from work every year; Death on the Job. Your job is literally killing you. Chew on that....I believe it is 100K.
Just about everyone really is in a struggle against these large, multi-national corporations who just don't give two hoots about any of us. Lead in toys made off shore, while loosing good jobs, healthcare dollars wasted on big Pharm and the Carriers, Next Gens, GE's and the like. It's all the same. We need to stand together and demand that these systems serve all of us, both those that use the service and those that provide them. But that means a real change in perspective and reaching out across lines to join forces. Are Doctors really ready to go there yet? I don't know. Dr Neve and the Physician Teamsters are trying here in our town. Can you folks finally accept being part of the AFL-CIO or the Teamsters? What say you folks???
"Well I saw the miner washing, scrubbing coal dust from his back; and heard the baby crying, got no fuel to heat the shack....But the Banks are made of marble, with a guard at every door, and the vaults are stuffed with silver, that the miner sweated for......."
Good Night and Good Luck
Paul
