More physicians need to be involved in health policy decisions

Physicians and other health-care professionals know what’s really at stake, not a business executive:

I believe that there are people who are best qualified to help solve this looming crisis. I put my trust in anyone who has ever had to take care of a sick person in the middle of the night, because this person is grounded in what this whole mess is all about.
The problems in medical care these days are mostly financial. Who pays and who benefits? We need people who can address these problems.
But we need people who know where the rubber meets the road. It’s not all about money. It’s about suffering.
Doctors, nurses and other medical professionals who have devoted themselves to the relief of human suffering need to be at the table for these discussions. A business executive, however competent, and regardless of his or her expertise in financial matters, can only bring so much experience to the deliberations.

Comments

Criminallopath
Providers acting in their own financial interest (do no harm) should make the decisions? Hardly. It is all about the money. If it was simply about “suffering” then the providers wouldn’t gnash their teeth as much as they do about being “killed” or complain when their six figure salaries are threatened or deny patients care unless they get special privileges in the legal system or actively work to keep the supply of providers low in order to keep their compensation rates high. No… this is all about the money and the greed of the providers who wish to line their own pockets with as much as they can (kind of like everyone else involved in any other endeavor).
Anonymous
Criminallopath:
You’re awfully cynical aren’t you? Where’s this black and white world you live in, cause I’d like to see it.
rbrav
I am a medical student working 100+ stressful hours a week. I am throwing eight or more years of my youth away. I am going to be at LEAST 100K+ in debt after school. I am working to keep people ALIVE and HEALTHY. Yeah, Criminallopath, how *dare* I want to be fairly compensated for my training, work, and role in society?
And I’m only bringing up the money because you decided it was the important issue here.
Okulus
Don’t get too burned up about that Criminallopath guy.
He/she is a classic crank, a lonely monomaniac whose life has collapsed around a sad few “issues” that can’t be left alone. His logic alone is revealing. By the same thinking, housing would be dirt cheap and available for everyone if only we threw open the doors to architecture and engineering schools to anyone who could fog a glass.
Criminallopath
Okulus, if the nonsensical logic by which you have reached your fallacious conclusions is the same as that by which you reach your clinical decisions… at least do the family a favor and place all of your assets in a trust as you will be bound to lose most if not all in the ensuing medical malpractice litigation. And yes, this is about money. Read the original post. The problem is with clinicians seeking to line their own pockets to provide their “care” to their patients at third party expense. Sorry… your mission and level of self-importance is particularly irrelevant as to need to avoid good fiscal judgement when it comes to healthcare funding. If you wish to heal the poor, nurture the indigent, soothe the illegal alien… show your caring and mitigation of “suffering” on your own dime. Leave the third party tax payers out of the equation. You are not showing altruism by providing your services predicated upon third party robbery.
Okulus
No one is holding you back, criminallopath. I give voluntarily (and involuntarily, too) to charitable care, and you can too. Reach into your tight little pocket and send something to your local free clinic. I guarantee your charity won’t be going to make anyone rich, even the doctors you seem to hate so much who donate their time and skill. Your pinched little missives don’t reveal much largeness of spirit, but there is hope for everyone, you included.
Criminallopath
My spirit notwithstanding… This debate needs to be approached by open eyes from everyone involved. The premise of the issue not being one of money is completely baseless. Of course this whole debate is about money. Physicians do have a role in the process but that role does not extend beyond their own interests. This whole nonsense of its “about suffering” is facetious at best and a poor facade at worst. Taking a blind eye to the financial realities of American healthcare has created the current morass. In the final calculus, it is easy to be altruistic and heal the suffering when one is using someone else’s money to do so. Physicians wishing to play the role of Mother Teresa should do so on their own dime. Healthcare is a resource just like any other and does not have a “special” place such that the reality of economics can or should be suspended. You guys are in a bit of a catch-22. If you don’t provide enough free treatment to the indigent, then the socialists will come down hard on your profession and will socialize the whole kit and kaboodle. On the other hand, working and not being paid for it is grossly unfair. Raping the tax payers, on the other hand, into paying into the current system with what providers make is also unfair (to the tax payer this time – who not only is paying their own way but now has to subsidize the non-producers). Yes, I do think you guys are overpaid with the basis being supply side restrictions on the domestic production of providers for existing demand. On the other hand, I don’t care what you make as long as I am not having to raped by the government to redistribute money to you guys by supporting the non-producers.
Anonymous
Nobody is raped by the government the way health care providers are raped.
You basically get paid submarket reimbursement then give 50% of it back in taxes. What a terrific deal! The reality is federal health care expenditures on physician payments are reduced by more than half when you consider the income tax “rebate” the federal government receives from doctors. Since the rebate includes federal income tax and medicare tax on privately insured and cash pay patients too, the rebate most certainly exceeds 50%.
Anonymous
Nobody is raped by the government the way health care providers are raped.
You basically get paid submarket reimbursement then give 50% of it back in taxes. What a terrific deal! The reality is federal health care expenditures on physician payments are reduced by more than half when you consider the income tax “rebate” the federal government receives from doctors. Since the rebate includes federal income tax and medicare tax on privately insured and cash pay patients too, the rebate most certainly exceeds 50%.
Criminallopath
We hear quite a bit about raping, sodomizing and sodomites. Funny, is it not, that the true rapist and sodomite turns out to be an MDiety!
http://www.local10.com/news/10262291/detail.html
Perhaps a slap on the wrist is what he needs from the medical board as that is about the level of censure that they hand out.
Anonymous
Wow that is sick Crim. Please give us an update. I assume this took place in your neck of the woods. Sounds like this would be a felony for which you would lose your license where I am from, not to mention your tallywhacker impounded.

More physicians need to be involved in health policy decisions

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