Who's making the profit???

Physician compensation dropped 10% last year, will drop 10% this year, and will drop another 10% for the next two years. Government sets medicare reimbursement rates for specific procedures, private insurance companies follow. Pretty soon you're going to have mass exodus of highly talented doctors into retirement as it's no longer worth the 12 hours days, on-call nights and 100+ chances per day to get sued by ambulance-chasing lawyers.

So lets look at the cost aspect:
Private Health Insurance Rates: Steadily rising
Reimbursement Paid to Physicians: Steadily falling
With the spread increasing, where's the money going??? INSURANCE COMPANIES.

Insurance companies are taking advantage of this situation by the US Gov't: "We only have $10B to pay out on Medicare reimbursements this year, and there are more piglets suckling on the sow, so we'll just pay the doctors less for each procedure they do."

Oh, and Dr. Smith, don't you ever make one little mistake or I'll sue your for millions and make your malpractice premium go from $35K per year to $50K - even when you've never been sued.

Rebound, go wander through your local V.A. hospital sometime. That's NOT profit driven. Your healtcare is absolutely pathetic because there's no competition for patient referrals, no motive to work efficiently which leads to LONG waits for just routine care, and you get the doctors who may not have the talent to compete in a profit driven market. OR, their trained in a foreign country and imported because no other docs want to work in those conditions. When a doctor goes on straight salary, at 5:00PM, he/she goes home to be with the family and leaves patients to wait for tomorrow.

Bingo!

The insurance companies are the problem. And yes, they are the ones making the profit. The less care they provide, the more profit they make. So their goal is to provide as little care as they possibly can. This is why the American health care system is gradually falling behind the rest of the world.

Well how is it that these two demons never get mainstream press?

1) Insurance profits are soaring while skilled doctors are quitting due to decreasing compensation?

2) Trial Lawyers convince profoundly dumb juries to award jackpot settlements whenever physicians make just one mistake. The result: No Internal or ER doc will give you the time of day until you've have thousands of dollars of diagnostic tests to give then the answer as to what's really wrong with you.

Every day in the ER:
1) Doc, I bumped my head. --> Head Cat Scan ordered ($500)
2) Doc, I feel dizzy. --> Brain MRI ordered ($900)
3) Doc, I have a pain in my stomach. --> Abdomen/Pelvis Cat Scan ($700)

What used to happen before the jackpot trial lawyers:
1) Bumped head? Take this Tylenol and I'll observe you for a few hours ($45 office visit)
2) Dizzy? You looked dehydrated so I have you an IV and observed your progress ($250)
3) Stomach pain? I observed you for two hours and it want away. You had gas. ($45)

You wouldn't believe how many ER CT scans and MRI's come up NORMAL, NORMAL, NORMAL because ER docs are now forced into such an anti-suit defensive position. They're no longer allowed to routinely make a diagnosis because a suing lawyer will ask him on the stand: Why didn't you send your patient to get a $1000 MRI when it was just down the hall??? One mistake every 10,000 patients forces the ER doc to have all patients radiologically scanned for lawsuit protection.

I'm sure happy that our malpractice trial lawyers are richer than our doctors.
My qtr's up.

What would solve this is a "no fault" system like they have in New Zealand. Look it up...it's very interesting.

But that still wouldn't solve the problem of lack of care. The HMOs need to be eliminated alltogether.

Exactly:

It would be nice to know what they are in dis-agreement about. :thumbup:

They're back....

Now start firing them. :)

Can't wait to watch them piss away the healthcare trust and then ask the govt. for help

Seriously, you need to stop drinking white gas - now.

It's called sarcasm, here's a link:

Dictionary.com

So, based on the word that the two sides were close to an agreement just prior to the walkout, and the fact that it lasted, what? 23.5 hours? Makes me wonder if the walkout was staged by the union to "prove" that they are "serious" about their position.

Stupid is as stupid does... :rolleyes:

Why are these US companies outsourcing American jobs...oh yeah..that's why.

No kidding.

It has to do with the bigger economic picture of actually having workers that can be counted on to show up.