An ER physician lets him have it:
Krugman and his ilk, and pretty much anyone who comments on the current health care crisis neglect to mention what I believe to be the key factor to solving the majority of our problems. Patients, all patients, need to be made to be responsible for their health care. It is not a RIGHT it is a RESPONSIBILITY. Now there is ABSOLUTELY NO MONETARY INCENTIVE for patients to make healthy choices in their lives, to actually get a primary physician, to take their medicines as prescribed, or to get that operation they were told to get three years ago because THEY CAN, in fact, go to the Emergency Department 24/7/365 and have someone like me arrange it all for them.
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M.D.O.D. is absolutely right about this. My only complaint is that his blog site (with the black background) will make you go blind if you read it for more than a minute or two.
MDOD is actually not addressing Krugman’s point at all. And it’s not as if it’s hard to follow. Krugman argues that Emergency Rooms aren’t an adequate substitute for primary care, as President Bush has argued. Is there any doctor on this site who disagrees with this?
So why doesn’t he quit agreeing to solve their problems in the ER if he dislikes doing it so much?
If all these thoughtless patients make him so unhappy, why doesn’t he get another job?
YEAH, Anon 5:40 – why can’t they become REAL primary care docs themselves??? Is it the pay or loss of access to ’stat’ results ER docs believe their office-practicing “colleagues” have access to?? Perhaps its having to cuddle the chronically ill that gets them – they really don’t like doing chronic care…
I don’t care what they become. But if it’s so miserable, surely there’s something else in the field they can do.
Kevin said the other day that physicians just want to be reimbursed at a “reasonable” rate. Well, what is reasonable?
How much do physicians feel they should make? At what number do they say “I’m done bitching, this is pretty good”?
Why are you so interested in silencing physicians? Do you lurk on blogs for other professions tying to find ways to silence them, too?
I’m not interested in “silencing” them. I’d like to know what it’s going to take to solve their problems, or ease their complaints.
It seems to be about money. So I’m asking how much do they want.
Why can’t any of them give a straight answer?
Because they are the most whiny bunch of professionals in the entire world. by far the ER doc’s are the worst. I never knew Doc’s were this immature to the point of whining non-stop over it. Why not just go to work and do your jobs like every one else in this world has to do?
You bitch and whine about all the people who comes to the ERs and yet at the same time you know without a doubt, you would most likely be out of a job if the only one’s who did come to the ERs, were they one’s having a true emergency. Face it, in reality, just how many do you see during a shift that has a true honest to God emergency? So without all the BS that comes in you might not be working there.
perhaps “someone like you” should step back for a moment before you attempt to provide health CARE. Who are you? who are they? why are you so angry? We’re all in this together. There are no easy answers; its a complicated mess, but WE ARE HERE NOW TOGETHER. We can find a way if we don’t see each other as enemies. The possibilities are as endless as the wide open blue sky (and then some).
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