U.S. Presidential race - Democrat Discussion

[Acewipe]

There's a limited amount that each medical school can take, and AMA through state medical boards control the amount approved schools as well involve themselves in the process of setting these restriction on who passes.

Each school has its own maximum based on many factors. What is your point? Should anyone be able to set up a med school and pump out unqualified docs? And as explained several times- med school is not the problem. No one wants to be a primary care doc. The pay is shit compared with specialists. Also, another reason for the shortage is lack of funding for residency spots.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...528424238.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/busine...Q4Q_story.html

Two good articles that help explain the problems.

[Deleted]

Each school has its own maximum based on many factors. What is your point? Should anyone be able to set up a med school and pump out unqualified docs? And as explained several times- med school is not the problem. No one wants to be a primary care doc. The pay is shit compared with specialists. Also, another reason for the shortage is lack of funding for residency spots.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...528424238.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/busine...Q4Q_story.html

Two good articles that help explain the problems.

The recidency problem is a legit one. However, if the need for primary care docs was so much higher than that of specialists, then the wages of the primary care docs should rise. The fact is that their wages are already absurdly high compared to other high-education professions.

And the question "should anyone be able to set up a med school" is a strawman. You don't need to let anyone set up a school, you just need to let more people do it. You also need to change the licensing to work around the residency issues, which AMA has control over . AMA is just looking out for their members, but it's unfortunately coming at a significant cost to society.

[Spectral]

While not directly pertinent to the points being made, I wanted to toss out that my dental student ex-girlfriend was wracking up $90K per year in debt ($70K+ of that from tuition, fees, and equipment). I could barely believe it till I saw it laid out here. I don't know exactly what's wrong with a system that does that, but something's clearly quite wrong.

[eriseis]

Part of that is the nature of the medical procedures/technology. They're far more complicated and more thorough than they've ever been, and of course, more expensive.

Not necessarily, the technology becomes more specialized but also more efficient and cheap.

[Acewipe]

The recidency problem is a legit one. However, if the need for primary care docs was so much higher than that of specialists, then the wages of the primary care docs should rise. The fact is that their wages are already absurdly high compared to other high-education professions.

No the wages are no "absurdly high" compared with other high education professions. A primary care doc makes $110K after 11 years of education. An engineer or a chemist or a lawyer or a professor can all make close to $100K with only 7 to 8 years of training.

The wages will not rise for the primary care docs unless congress increases medicare payouts for their work (private insurance base their payouts on medicare) and allow them to be paid for work that, while they are qualified to perform, they must refer out to specialists.

It is obvious that you are stuck on the AMA as the cause for our medical ills- and that is fine for you to think that if you want to. But the simple fact is that if you were actually close to the situation like I am and actually understood what doctors do, how they are paid, and what they go through, you would understand.

[Deleted]

It is obvious that you are stuck on the AMA as the cause for our medical ills- and that is fine for you to think that if you want to. But the simple fact is that if you were actually close to the situation like I am and actually understood what doctors do, how they are paid, and what they go through, you would understand.

AMA's only explains the absurdly high wages of medical doctors in the US, not only through the restriction of new entrants to the profession, but also by enacting strict restrictions what nurses and similar medical personell are allowed to perform. There are a plethora of other problems such as low out-of-pocket paying due to regulated insurance policies that have to cover everything etc.

[Acewipe]

[QUOTE=Diurdi;15910865]AMA's only explains the absurdly high wages of medical doctors in the US/QUOTE]

I just cannot take you seriously when you miss every point that I have made and that you still think doctors (including primary care docs.) make "absurdly high wages"

[Spectral]

No the wages are no "absurdly high" compared with other high education professions. A primary care doc makes $110K after 11 years of education. An engineer or a chemist or a lawyer or a professor can all make close to $100K with only 7 to 8 years of training.

This doesn't effect your point much, but a huge number of chemists and professors have more 7 or 8 years of training. In science, postdoctoral work's pretty much the norm, and getting job as a tenure track professor typically requires a pretty significant body of research, publications, and often grants to follow. Postdoc work is pretty analogous to residency.

[eriseis]

This doesn't effect your point much, but a huge number of chemists and professors have more 7 or 8 years of training. In science, postdoctoral work's pretty much the norm, and getting job as a tenure track professor typically requires a pretty significant body of research, publications, and often grants to follow. Postdoc work is pretty analogous to residency.

I like reading your comments in science-related matters, Spectral

(this is not sarcasm)

[Spectral]

I like reading your comments in science-related matters, Spectral

Thank ya! I try...

[ptwonline]

There definitely is a shortage of doctors and there is no doubt that it is the medical community intentionally engineering the shortage. This doesn't happen just in the US either. For example, Canadian medical associations do this deliberately as well, though you won't ever get them on the record admitting to this.

My father has practiced medicine for the past 35 years. He sits on several medical boards and advisory bodies. I get to hear more about the rather corrupt and political machinations of the medical world than I really wanted to know.

[Deleted]

My father has practiced medicine for the past 35 years. He sits on several medical boards and advisory bodies. I get to hear more about the rather corrupt and political machinations of the medical world than I really wanted to know.

The practice pretty much started with the hippocratic oath lol.

But this is what Unions do. They attempt to improve the conditions of their members and increase their competetiveness usually by making it difficult for outsiders to compete. That's totally fine, you just need to remember this when you give them power at different boards or other decision making organs. They will use this power for the benefit of their members at the potential expense of everyone else.

[ptwonline]

The practice pretty much started with the hippocratic oath lol.

But this is what Unions do. They attempt to improve the conditions of their members and increase their competetiveness usually by making it difficult for outsiders to compete. That's totally fine, you just need to remember this when you give them power at different boards or other decision making organs. They will use this power for the benefit of their members at the potential expense of everyone else.

The problem isn't the unions per se, but the motivations of the people behind it. In a culture where greed rules, of course union power will often be abused.

I definitely have a love/hate relationship with unions. They are certainly needed to protect workers from being abused by employers, but sometimes they go too far because they are too powerful and cause more harm than good.

[Deleted]

The problem isn't the unions per se, but the motivations of the people behind it. In a culture where greed rules, of course union power will often be abused.

You can't get greed out of it. People will always be greedy. You just need to realize that when you stack the medical boards of different states with people who all belong to the same union, they will probably try to push their union agenda at the same time.

[eriseis]

The practice pretty much started with the hippocratic oath lol.

But this is what Unions do. They attempt to improve the conditions of their members and increase their competetiveness usually by making it difficult for outsiders to compete. That's totally fine, you just need to remember this when you give them power at different boards or other decision making organs. They will use this power for the benefit of their members at the potential expense of everyone else.

I usually disagree with you, but you just nailed it with this. The problem with barriers of entry in medicine is that while you wanna keep riffraff and incompetent people out, these barriers may have transformed into something purely self-servient.

I don't get why education of doctors and their salaries needs to be such a problem. Doctors in other countries can be educated without much restrictions and are not as highly paid (still paid relatively high to the rest of their respective population, though) as American doctors and they do just fine. Just ask all the people in Texas and the rest of the border with Mexico who cross the border for health care.

[Spectral]

By the way, did anyone notice that borderline terrorist Randall Terry got himself a delegate? He even says he's going to win! Lolzy link.

[Catta]

I usually disagree with you, but you just nailed it with this. The problem with barriers of entry in medicine is that while you wanna keep riffraff and incompetent people out, these barriers may have transformed into something purely self-servient.

I don't get why education of doctors and their salaries needs to be such a problem. Doctors in other countries can be educated without much restrictions and are not as highly paid (still paid relatively high to the rest of their respective population, though) as American doctors and they do just fine. Just ask all the people in Texas and the rest of the border with Mexico who cross the border for health care.

its quite easy to retain high quality while not restricting amount of entries based on what the AMA wants and what the universities actually has the capacity for

[holyballs2]

Sorry I gotta do this. Americans truly are dumb people, it amazes me. Right now Romney and Santorum are leading race and they both openly said they are willing to go to war with a country that hasn't attacked another country ever! (Iran) Romney even said that when we attack Iran and when gas is up to 6 dollars per gallon, the 6$ per gallon isnt that big of a deal compared to the "threat" of iran. He simply does not know what it's like to be a middle class american.

[Kasierith]

Maybe- but generally it is almost impossible to get a residency spot in the US without attending a US med school first.

And- if you plan on doing general/primary care, you won't make a "lot" of money anyway...

Actually, there are a lot of international health care professionals who come to the US.

http://www.migrationinformation.org/...lay.cfm?ID=583

[BLCalliente]

I hate to be the one to tell you this but only a very few extremists want to outright outlaw abortion, no one wants to outlaw gays (that's just ridiculous), and as for outlawing other religions it's the opposite the left has outlawed Christianity.

If you think it's "only a few extremists" that want to outlaw abortion, you are wrong.

If you think that nobody wants to outlaw gays (or at least gay marriage) you are wrong.

If you think the left wants to outlaw christianity, you are wrong. They want to avoid having christianity rammed down everyone's throats, and public policy being made based on christian doctrine.