Topic: medical care

[fuzzybutt]

as always terry, you manage to crack me up. the wife is looking at me as if iwere mad i'm laghing so hard.

[Rocking-M]

Medic09 and Ichiban 4:  thanks for an inside look at what's going on from the doctor's viewpoint.  My family doctor backs you up all the way.

thanks Gents!

[masonryman]

Eddy said;

"Also, you and I both know well that unionized construction workers in NYC make a hell of a lot of money (most make in the six figures -- not bad for somebody without a HS diploma), and they have excellent union medical benefits.  In fact, they cannot even nail in a nail without a foreman, an apprentice, and an assistant, all on the clock at the expense of the "evil, capitalist real estate developers".  Wanna take a guess how I know so much about union construction work?"

Mark said;

I could go on about the ignorance you have spewed in this thread for days but, in my usual fashion, I will keep it brief. You don't know nearly as much about Union construction as you think, you can not get into the apprentice program with out at least a GED the apprenticeship programs are nationwide and monitored by the government and require 1500 hour of class room training completing the program gives you an associates degree.

  As for the insurance I pay $5.50 per hour, have 80/20 co pay, no prescription coverage and that is if I stay in the network. My insurance sucks and so dose the American Health care system. It ( heath care industry) should take a few lessons for the construction industry and train it's own help at it's own cost.

It sounds like you experience with Union construction would consist of your dad owning construction company?

[BobbyR]

Less than 1/2 the Doctors in the US belong to the AMA. The young ones are struggling to make a living, sounds silly but Doctoring is not what it used to be money wise. The kids in Medical School today have different expectations which is a good thing. They are in it to practice medicine.

Sadly, Bobby, I seem to recall surveys showing just the opposite:  today's medical students are mostly in it for 'profession' and money.  Far less 'calling', or social service notions.  I honestly don't recall where I saw these, other than in one of the medical journals my wife receives.  This is also why many of today's students plan on going into high paying specialties rather than family practice and the like.

It is true that many docs today are struggling to pay the bills.  My wife ran a private practice.  Provided the best kind of care; family medicine the way we remembered it from our childhood.  Patients could get her on her phone, house calls, etc.  Her office was packed and busy every day.  For all that, we had trouble paying bills.  Insurances would drag their feet on getting payment out, and challenge billing on every little opportunity.  Medicare and Medicaid were among them.  Sometimes bills had to be resubmitted to the insurances for a third and fourth time before they would be paid.  That all meant endless extra hours working in the office not on patient care, just on bureaucratic paperwork.

The kicker to me?  Over a year after she closed the office, she was finally getting payment on some patients.  OVER A YEAR to get paid for medical care rendered in good faith when the patient needed it! 

So now she makes a decent salary with good benefits and steady hours working for a gov't facility.  Her patients, especially the poorer ones, have lost out.  We weren't hoping to get rich; but we did want to pay our own bills on time each month without undue worry.  A lot of time, money (read: student loans!), and hard work went into creating that dream.  Many good and caring physicians have been driven out of providing good care by the present managed care in the US. 

That is the pity. Dedicated healers are driven either out of regular practice or forced to squeeze every dime they can to make a life and pay those staggering loans. My brother's med school was $40K complete. That is in the 70's when student loans were not a profit center. The middle class is taking it in the chin and they are getting fed up.

[bradweingartner]

The facts are:

Somebody pays in life, and usually that somebody is you.

If you take all of the money people are currently paying into insurance and earning their medical insurance, and instead place that same money into the pool for the greater good it's pretty clear that you come up short.

I'm 25, uninsured, and just recently started making a comfortable wage. However, being a self-employed contractor, insurance is absolutely ridiculous. Even being very very frugal and having very few bills does not leave me with enough free-cash to buy insurance. Unless of course I'd like to be living paycheck to paycheck again crossing my fingers that the car doesn't break down.

However I remain torn on where the real issues lie - I'm going to have to say it's a combination of factors.

Health care is extraordinarily expensive to begin with, so that seems to be a problem. I work in the health system as a consultant of sorts for electronic medical record systems. I know what hospitals charge for what they do and it's mind-boggling. How does $100,000 bill for 7 days in the hospital sound? If I came down with something serious that needed invasive surgery like appendicitis I'd be straight up boned. But they have to pay for the systems, the people, the outside help like me to make sure the ridiculously expensive and complicated record system works and people can use it. The cost of malpractice suits have hit the whole system as well. Every I is dotten, every T crossed, time and time again, by 10 different set of eyes - all AFTER you leave the hospital. That costs too.

So, lets streamline the health care system billing process by unitizing it all under a socialized health system. What do you do with all the people that displaces? I guess they don't have to worry about health insurance, but now they are unemployed. Guess they can go work for the government to handle all the paperwork on their end. Not really much overall gain in costs I bet. Somebody, somewhere, is going to be doing a lot of paperwork, needlessly undoubtedly, just to meet all the requirements the government will place on this program.

Doctors are #$%*s. I assure you of this, almost universal truth, from working with them daily. They are snotty, think they are god, and expect the world to be handed to them. They are also, generally speaking, morons. I'd like to punch most of them in the face. It is very clear that they have no interest in doing anything well, right, or otherwise. And the buzz-phrase here throughout doctors and nursing is "Patient Care"... When they resist every system put in place to make their job easier and more accurate to speed up their paperwork and decrease errors it really doesn't work to cry "PATIENT CARE". But they do, clogging up the whole thing. Fact is, they are lazy, all of them. And that brings me to my real point:

Yes there is a serious problem with healthcare in the United States today, and I'll give you a hint as to where it is: It's not where the money is coming from, but where it's going.

If you want socialized healthcare, first they need to work on making it overall efficient enough and cheap enough that the honey pot covers the needs of all the bees. Not just the ones contributing to the pot.

Don't even get me started on the money they are pumping into this Iraq thing either. I think of the dollars going to waste in the middle east and it boils my blood. Lets pump that money into a solution for our problems here. It's too bad as mentioned above, they money isn't in the cure usually, it's in the treatment. Insurance companies are making bank as always. If this system was fixed, there goes their profits. With the majority of the power all wrapped up in DC, it's much cheaper buy people off than risk being driven out of existence entirely. And if socialized healthcare ever does come to the US, you can bet your ass that it's been lobbied into a total mess that ensures in insurers still get a cut of the pie - defeating the whole purpose to begin with.

But truth be told, I'm not sold on any solutions because they all seem to focus on one problem or another. Lets hear a solutions that covers all bases. How about we roll health insurance and malpractice insurance into one and socialize it! Better yet, lets add mandatory jail-time for real malpractice and quash even the idea of suing. That just put the steamlining into warp drive. Doctors and Nurses would be a lot more careful if they didn't think their insurance will just pick up the tab.

[mark]

....So, lets streamline the health care system billing process by unitizing it all under a socialized health system. What do you do with all the people that displaces? I guess they don't have to worry about health insurance, but now they are unemployed......

What became of the iceman, the milkman, and the T.V. repairman? Perhaps they should show some personal responsibility and purchase unemployment insurance - or do they expect the government to do everything for them.

[DammitDan]

Doctors are #$%*s. I assure you of this, almost universal truth, from working with them daily. They are snotty, think they are god, and expect the world to be handed to them. They are also, generally speaking, morons. I'd like to punch most of them in the face. It is very clear that they have no interest in doing anything well, right, or otherwise. And the buzz-phrase here throughout doctors and nursing is "Patient Care"... When they resist every system put in place to make their job easier and more accurate to speed up their paperwork and decrease errors it really doesn't work to cry "PATIENT CARE". But they do, clogging up the whole thing. Fact is, they are lazy, all of them.

Wow...  Perhaps you should install a filter between your brain and your fingers.  Universal generalizations are also universally false.

My father is a developmental pediatrician.  I don't know anyone else who has worked harder than he has at his job, working an average 70-80 hour week, sometimes soaring to 100 or more hours when he was on 24-hour call 4 days in a row.  And on top of that, I never heard him complain about it.  Lazy?  Not so much.

He is also the smartest man I know.  You can ask him about any medical problem that you might have, and he instantly knows the medical term for that problem and what you would need to fix it.  Ask him the meaning of just about any word and he can tell you, because he recognizes the Latin delineation from when he took the class in college.  If I ever had a question about my math homework, be it algebra, trig, or calculus, he took one look at the equation and explained to me how it worked.  Moronic?  Not so much.

He sacrificed much of the time he could have spent with his family helping other people.  He gave our home phone number to his special families (those with children with severe developmental disorders or diseases) so they could call us at 3AM when their child was sick and they didn't know what to do.  He showed compassion and professionalism when others would have yelled at the family for calling at that hour.  An #$%*?  Not so much.

The only real complaint that he has ever had is with insurance companies (both private and public...  TennCare) screwing his practice over.  At one point TennCare was paying their pediatric practice, who serviced over 30,000 families, $.20 on the dollar.  This is why he had to work 80 hours a week, because the doctors had to pay the people who worked for them before they could pay themselves.

It's offensive that you would even suggest lumping my father into your ignorant generalization.  Have you considered that perhaps the doctors treat you like #$%* because you treat them like #$%*?

[masonryman]

I agree with Dan, I doubt many people in the health care industry are dumb or lazy and the commitment required is off the chart.

The capitalist system is partly to blame, every body is looking for a why to make a buck. When most things get to expensive a person can just ask, is it worth the price I am paying, with heath care can you afford not to pay it especially if you have kids.

another example is the auto industry, the UAW workers get a bad wrap and some deserve it. The fact remains, there are less than 40 labor hours in a new car raw material to rolling off the line. That equals about $3500 of a $25,000.00 price tag. I have not bought a new car, off the lot, since 1990.

[medic09]

+1 on DammitDan!  Well put, and they are lots of other fine individuals like his dad.  I'm very happy to be married to one, and to have worked with a few over the years.

We even get the occasional jackass and moron here, unreal as that may seem.  That doesn't mean that all SOHC4 riders are so.

[Demon67]

Well ed I suppose a couple wise ass one liners is easier to deal with in the scheme of things than dumm ass multi liners.
Bill the demon

[bradweingartner]

It's offensive that you would even suggest lumping my father into your ignorant generalization.  Have you considered that perhaps the doctors treat you like #$%* because you treat them like #$%*?

Wow, figured people would get their panties in a bunch.

Okay, I figured it was clear that medical professionals are not ALL bad. But I'm telling you, just because you know one or two good ones don't for a second think that's the norm in HOSPITALS, private practices not assessed here. And it's definitely not me being an #$%* to them, but rather their high-horse mentality when it comes to people who tell them they have to do their job differently - That'd be me, and they don't like me for that at all. Maybe it's the pressure, maybe it's the attitude of only the doctors I have to deal with, but it's there, it's real, and it's a pain in the rear. I'm one of the nicest guys you're every going to meet and these doctors and nurses have left a disgustingly bad taste in my mouth in the past year of dealing with them.

If there was a nicer way to put that I would have. But these problems come from the very core of the medical field. The Doctors, the Nurses, the Administration. All conditioned to fight every change in their routines. If we want change to happen in the way the US views it's medical industry problems we first have to convince these people holding the keys that it will work, they will get paid, but they have to find a way to save money so we can all afford it.

Good luck with that!

[Frankenkit]

I have to say, while not all doctors are a pain to deal with (my primary physician included) a lot of specialists, residents *and* fellows ARE.  My department is pretty much next to custodial staff on the bottom rung.  While *occasionally* I'll have a fellow or two help me move a stretcher through a crowded unit, most residents not only refuse to move while in their little white-coat circle around a patient's room, (it's a university hospital)  but they will also give me dirty looks when I say "Excuse me, I need to get through, please"  ...then more looks while I wheel the patient out.  I understand they're busy, but it takes no time at all to sidestep a foot or two away and keep listening to their lecture.  We get hounded everytime we look like we're standing still (often waiting for someone to consult with the patient before we can get underway) and it's a pain...

....then again, the Doernboecher doctors are almost always tops for us, just cool human beings to work with everyday.

so yeah, you know, some are jerks and living road hazards, and some are the best kind of people around.  I don't think what Brad said was far out of line. 

[edbikerii]

Ed's not stupid.  Ed has Long Term Disability insurance.  Ed knows he can get hurt/sick/disabled, so Ed pays a small amount of his own hard-earned money to insure his ENTIRE salary.  Ed's disability insurance even pays premiums for Ed's health insurance if he becomes disabled.  Ed's job also has disability insurance to cover 60% of his salary, and the state in which Ed lives, provides disability insurance.  For that matter, Ed also has Social Security Disability insurance provided by the Federal government, which is based on the amount that Ed is taxed each week on his earnings.

Aren't taxpayers carrying enough on our backs already?

It's OK Fuzzy, we don't think you're a lowlife, it's just Ed, and we all know what a drongo he is, so don't take offence mate.

I'd love to know what Ed would do if he was incapacitated and could no longer work, and had no money and no employer to pay his medical insurance for him, I reckon he'd be the first to whine about the lack of socialized (or at least tax payer funded) health care.

An as far as AJ's rant about the constitution, geezus, that was written 200+ years ago mate, not by God, just by some guys who thought that America could be a fairer place under self rule. I'm sure they would have included "And free health care for all" if that was happening around the world at the time? Cheers, Terry.

[edbikerii]

Sorry, Kit, but what are you talking about?  There is lots of research and development going into diabetes research by capitalists.  I personally know a guy who runs a company doing nothing but diabetes research.  Of course, he's a capitalist, and he expects to get a huge payoff when some of his treatments are commercialized.  If there weren't a payoff, he wouldn't have funded the research with his own money in the first place.  THEN NOBODY WINS.  Don't you get it?

Actually a recent study showed that the richest Americans are less healthy that the poor in the UK. The Doctors have more time to work on preventative care. Your health insurance company pays the Doctor to spend 5 minutes with you, he is told by the Health insurance company what drugs he can perscribe so the drug companies slow down development and turn out the same stuff since that is what the Insurance companies will pay for. The Insurance company tells him what tests are allowed, so, unless your Doctor has the time to make the calls and fill out the paperwork, you don't get the test. 

To this, I'd like to add: a capitalist health care system has no reason to really research cures for Type 1 diabetes and other long-term, chronic illnesses as long as they can make money selling temporary fixes.  Pancreatic stem cell research?   Hell no, that's the devil's work! 

We'll just sell you a $50-$200 glucometer, $20 test strips every month, a $20 lancet pen for every time you break yours (heh)  $10-$20 in needles for your $100-300 (depending on the brand) insulin... or the multiple kinds if you have fast and slow acting types.  To that, we'll nickel and dime you to death with glucose tabs if you're truly watching your blood sugar levels and tend to dip low instead of go high.  We'll be waiting for you like vultures for the time(s) your sugar goes too high for too long and you go into diabetic ketoacidosis.  We'll also be waiting for you to have arteriosclerosis, nerve damage etc, and wait for your feet to rot off from diabetes-impaired blood flow and reduced sensation. 

Kids with CF- You're proper f*cked, too.  Sorry.  If you live into your 30s, you'll have the joy of knowing you cripple either your parents or yourselves or both with semi-annual hospital stays for lung problems among other things.  Our capitalist system protects innocent taxpayers from your debt.  Thanks!

[edbikerii]

What does your friend's desire to retire early have to do with ME PAYING FOR HIS HEALTHCARE.  Tough #$%*.  Let him work until he is eligible for Medicare like everybody else, or let him pay for his own insurance.  WTF are you thinking?

Ed's stand is the usual 'survival of the rich, to hell with the poor' conservative cant.  A friend of mine used to spout the same line, but now he's in his early sixties, wants to retire before medicare kicks in, and has found that his retirement income won't afford him health insurance.  COBRA is, of course, available but to his surprise is around $1000 / month and won't last to age 65.  BSBC?  More than that.  Much more.  This is a guy that has IRA's, stocks, and a retirement from his work, so it isn't a case of being dirt poor.   Strangely, his tune has changed some.  He now thinks we need to do something about medical costs.  Perhaps even look at (gasp) a national health care plan.

My, how circumstances can change a man's thinking.  He's still working and hating every minute of it.

There is also another side to the story.  When I retired, also before age 65, we thought we could shop around and find a less expensive policy than buying my office plan under COBRA.  We were wrong.  BSBC would cover us, but wanted roughly 85% of my retirement take home.  One company would cover me, but not my wife.  All others just said 'No" to both of us because of existing health problems.  For the record, neither of us smoke, drink or use drugs and fairly healthy other than asthma and the after effects of rheuthmatic fever - a leaky heart valve.

Apparently our vaunted privatly owned health insurance industry only works for those who don't need insurance.

We need national health care in the United States.

[BobbyR]

Bobby's not stupid.  Bobby has Long Term Disability insurance.  Bobby knows he can get hurt/sick/disabled, so Bobby pays a small amount of his own hard-earned money to insure his ENTIRE salary.  Bobby's disability insurance even pays premiums for Bobby's health insurance if he becomes disabled.  Bobby's job also has disability insurance to cover 60% of his salary, and the state in which Bobby lives, provides disability insurance.  For that matter, Bobby also has Social Security Disability insurance provided by the Federal government, which is based on the amount that Bobby is taxed each week on his earnings.

Bobby and Ed have been so smart why should they worry about those that may have hit a bump in the road? Bobby and Ed have figured out how to position all their shock absorbers. Everybody should do what Bobby and Ed have done.

"Are there no prisons, no workhouses!!!"

-E. Scrooge  12/19/1843

PS. Dickens wrote in the wake of British government changes to the welfare system known as the Poor Laws, changes which required among other things, welfare applicants to "work" on treadmills, as Scrooge points out. Dickens asks, in effect, for people to recognize the plight of those whom the Industrial Revolution has displaced and driven into poverty, and the obligation of society to provide for them humanely. Failure to do so, the writer implies through the personification of Ignorance and Want as ghastly children, will result in an unnamed "Doom" for those who, like Scrooge, believe their wealth and status qualifies them to sit in judgement on the poor rather than to assist them.

Scrooge “embodies all the selfishness and indifference of the prosperous classes who parrot phrases about the ‘surplus population’ and think their social responsibilities fully discharged when they have paid their taxes.”

 

[edbikerii]

Sorry, Masonryman, but no, I'm not rich, nor do I have wealthy parents.  My experience with union construction involved me being a NON-UNION construction worker for a few months about 20 years ago.  As you probably know, there are (were?) ratios where a certain number of union men were required for a certain number of non-union men.  So, I was working side-by-side with, and doing the same jobs as, seriously overpaid, well-insured dudes, while I was neither.  At that time, there was no HS diploma required (not that it mattered to me, as I obviously had one).

Another lovely experience was the time union electricians (local 3) confiscated my tools once at a trade show at the Javits center because I had the audacity to try to assemble my own display instead of hiring them at exorbitant rates (mandatory apprentice to watch & learn, electrician to work power screwdriver and foreman to watch & supervise).  So, I said "go f()CK yourselves", and I broke out my manual tools and got more callouses on principle.  Bunch of thieves.

Eddy said;

"Also, you and I both know well that unionized construction workers in NYC make a hell of a lot of money (most make in the six figures -- not bad for somebody without a HS diploma), and they have excellent union medical benefits.  In fact, they cannot even nail in a nail without a foreman, an apprentice, and an assistant, all on the clock at the expense of the "evil, capitalist real estate developers".  Wanna take a guess how I know so much about union construction work?"

Mark said;

I could go on about the ignorance you have spewed in this thread for days but, in my usual fashion, I will keep it brief. You don't know nearly as much about Union construction as you think, you can not get into the apprentice program with out at least a GED the apprenticeship programs are nationwide and monitored by the government and require 1500 hour of class room training completing the program gives you an associates degree.

  As for the insurance I pay $5.50 per hour, have 80/20 co pay, no prescription coverage and that is if I stay in the network. My insurance sucks and so dose the American Health care system. It ( heath care industry) should take a few lessons for the construction industry and train it's own help at it's own cost.

It sounds like you experience with Union construction would consist of your dad owning construction company?

[Demon67]

BobbyR I was going to ask does no one read Dickens any more? Thanks, there are a bunch of things I've picked up on because I've lasted a certain length of time and one of them is if you're not your brothers keeper, you may be your brothers enemy. Oh by the way, can I use the quote "toilette trained at gunpoint"?
Bill the demon.

[BobbyR]

BobbyR I was going to ask does no one read Dickens any more? Thanks, there are a bunch of things I've picked up on because I've lasted a certain length of time and one of them is if you're not your brothers keeper, you may be your brothers enemy. Oh by the way, can I use the quote "toilette trained at gunpoint"?
Bill the demon.

Yes of course, feel free. I heard it from a guy in a Bar once, stuck with me I guess. Yes, the Dickinsoian is coming back around. At least the English read their own book and listened. I guess no one in the US has read the Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. It may be the greatest American novel. 

[masonryman]

Bobby, I am utterly amazed, you are more than a poster of pretty naked pics. You may want to watch showing that side of your self, people might start to take you seriously.

[BobbyR]

Bobby, I am utterly amazed, you are more than a poster of pretty naked pics. You may want to watch showing that side of your self, people might start to take you seriously.

Damn, we can't have that now can we. It could blow my cover.

[masonryman]

Ed,  
I started non union, worked 14 hours a day for 5.00 an hour.  I still work with non-union workers daily, as long as they are making prevailing wage I don't really care.

  The non union contractors and employers take advantage of far more people than there union counter parts do, it really just depends on what side of the issue you are standing.

I make more money working for my self than I do for union contractors, you just have to make it work in your favor, union work for company truck, gas card and ins. side work for the extras.

[edbikerii]

Sorry, MM, please explain:

Ed,  
I started non union, worked 14 hours a day for 5.00 an hour.  I still work with non-union workers daily, as long as they are making prevailing wage I don't really care.

  The non union contractors and employers take advantage of far more people than there union counter parts do, it really just depends on what side of the issue you are standing.
I make more money working for my self than I do for union contractors, you just have to make it work in your favor, union work for company truck, gas card and ins. side work for the extras.

[masonryman]

The non union contractors are taking advantage of the unskilled, uneducated, uninformed and illegal aliens to make larger profits for their selves and lower the standard of living for many.

Unions on the other hand band together and hold people and contractors hostage to try and take what other people don't think they should get. The cost just gets passed on as the cost of doing business thus raising the cost of living.

I work alot in many fields, I make a good living, it is not me the unions are protecting so I am pretty indifferent. I have not work for flat union scale in over 10 years, union scale is a minimum, contractors can pay more and many make much more than scale. They willing do this because it is the smart thing to do to keep the best help they can.


Is there some one out there willing to do your job cheaper than you, I am guessing there is and maybe you still have a job because you are good at it.

[edbikerii]

I guess I'm just not clear on what your point is.  My point was that union construction workers in New York City currently earn excellent salaries, sometimes upwards of $100,000 per year, and they have excellent benefits.  I have seen plenty of evidence to back that up.  Is this what you are disputing?

The non union contractors are taking advantage of the unskilled, uneducated, uninformed and illegal aliens to make larger profits for their selves and lower the standard of living for many.

Unions on the other hand band together and hold people and contractors hostage to try and take what other people don't think they should get. The cost just gets passed on as the cost of doing business thus raising the cost of living.

I work alot in many fields, I make a good living, it is not me the unions are protecting so I am pretty indifferent. I have not work for flat union scale in over 10 years, union scale is a minimum, contractors can pay more and many make much more than scale. They willing do this because it is the smart thing to do to keep the best help they can.


Is there some one out there willing to do your job cheaper than you, I am guessing there is and maybe you still have a job because you are good at it.