Can’t even the dumbest of the dumb see that 45% of doctors won’t quit if “Obamacare” passes? I mean really! To say nothing of the fact that there is no “Obamacare.”

Yes! I trained for 10 years to be a doctor, and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to get my medical degree, yet I will just quit if this passes. Yeah, makes sense.

Thanks BT. You forgot to add that health insurance premiums, in spite of R’s precious tort reform,continue to rise in Texas just as with every other state.

I had a discussion(argument?) with a teabagger last night that was spouting this IBD survey; he truly believed it.

One thing we did agree on was that both Dem and Repub parties were corrupt to the core and that the only solution was to get the money out of politics.

Amazingly enough, we both wanted to ‘take back our country’.

LOL
Don’t know where to start.

New England Journal of Medicine has a poll that shows three-quarters of physicians in favor of a public option. Just forget that poll did you, John?

Medicaid rates are controlled by the states, Medicare by the federal government. So Arizona pays out at 60% of “costs”. Who decides what those costs are, John? Is it the providers themselves?

And in Texas, McAllen is the poster child for why costs are so high.

Aaaaaassssssss–hoooooooooooooole.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zZrB9WS9oA

I call BS on the Medicare payments for doctors. They run about 80% or a bit more of private insurance payments. In fact, the private insurers calibrate their payments at about 120% of Medicare. Private pay is more. Scarecrow has explained this in a post I can’t find.

“spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to get my medical degree, yet I will just quit if this passes.” ; yet the teabagger used that idea to justify why the doctors would quit.

But as an ‘insurance broker’ he thought doctors were entitled to make lots of money because they “spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to get my medical degree,”. He had no idea that the ‘hundreds of thousands of dollars’ spent were to become ’specialists’ because that’s where the money is.

But he did relate a story I’ve to follow up where a doctor sent out for blood lab work for a medicare patient and the lab charged the doctor $68 but Medicare only -supposedly- covered $17 of the $68.

Things must be different in AZ. Traditionally, there are shortages of doctors because it’s really hard to get into medical school. Kyl wants us to believe that people that have the grades and test scores decide not to go to medical school because someone might sue them someday? We ain’t birthers, Kyl.

Every time a Republic says something stupid I think “well, it can’t get more stupid than that” and the next day I find out that I’m wrong. I wonder what the total IQ is of the Rs in Congress – can’t be much.

As someone who used to do lots of surveying, it is pretty easy to get skewed results — if that is what you are after.

Just like the medical research that conveniently comes up with results that favor the company paying for the research, surveys conducted by a business publication are easily manipulated to come up with pro-business results.

If they really wanted to know what doctors are thinking, they would have done the survey in cooperation with a medical association and would have used their list of members.

——-

Back to doctors: this is why I think it is a good idea to introduce tort reform into the bill. A modest amount of tort reform will bring a lot of doctors on board and will show that the President is looking for as much cost savings as possible. We all know that tort reform is over blown — that doesn’t make it completely useless, though.

Healthcare costs, from what I understand, have not decreased in Texas. In fact, Texas is an example showing that tort reform is not the answer some Republicans claim it is. At best, it can be part of an overall package.

We all hear over & over how the system really is badly broken. There are states that have significantly lower healthcare delivery costs, including MN, WI, IA, SD, ND, OR, & WA. I heard Senator Klobuchar talking about this recently. There is a “Mayo Model” out of MN that has created positive results. There are interesting ideas out there, but the MSM seems more interested in oversimplifying & making things into a horse race. Will the Dems win or the GOP? What about the American people & our healthcare system?

Medicare is a very good system, but many doctors do have a legitimate complaint about reimbursement rates. That doesn’t mean the system needs to go, we just need to tweak the reimbursement.

And maybe the doctors would have been in a better position to advocate for better reimbursement if they had participated in the development of Medicare back in the 60’s rather than just blindly opposing it.

We just got it back.You must be in favor of a Dictatorship

Good catch. The fact seem to always get in the way of Repuke talking points.

We do not live in a fact based world here in America.

AE911Truth.org

Here in Texas we have death panels courtesy of a bill signed by former governor George Bush. Under state law, if your case is hopeless, a hospital board can decide to STOP LIFE GIVING CARE and let you die if your family can’t pay the bills.

Also, our family practice docs are swamped – I bet all those extra dr’s are specialists. And prices have NOT gone down since punitive damages for malpractice were limited to $250k.

I also understand that there is quite a bit of over charging by some doctors in Medicare. If the government would crack down on that there would probably be a whole lot more money and also doctors might stop doing it.

What Kyl is engaged in is narrative construction. It has nothing to do with facts or evidence. It is about storytelling. He tells a story according to what he and his audience want to hear. Then he keeps repeating it. You could debunk his story until hell froze over. It would make no difference. He would just keep repeating it. The only real way to counter such narratives is make anyone who believes them or repeats them feel like a stupid git.

Perhaps they have a shortage of doctors because our schools are not educating kids in the sciences well enough to get into med school. Seems more logical to me.

Not sciences or anything else apparently. Saw at Huff Post this morning that 77% of students from OK could not name the first president of the US !!!!!!

I’m not opposed to tossing in some kind of tort reform to appease doctors – the insurance companies are screwing them on the malpractice rates. But I’m very much opposed to damages caps. Huge monetary awards are the only way to deter irresponsible behavior by corporations and the obscenely wealthy. It’s not like you can throw a corporation in jail. When you cap judicial awards you take away the only deterrent we have against out-of-control corporations (which includes for-profit health providers).

Who is God’s name is interested in going to medical school these days? The hot major is computer science and engineering if you are any good at science to begin with. Much more profitable, no meddlesome insurance companies to deal with. And there’s no malpractice suit when a computer crashes!

The AZ State Lege cut funding to UA last year. That really helps. The growth of population in AZ over the last couple of decades with many retirees doesn’t help. AZ is near the bottom for K-12 education so the Rethugs have made it a relatively stoopid state.

If you believe “We just got it back” then you got fooled again.

RED STATE

can we stop calling them “stupid” and just call them what they are? calculating. cold. predatory.

Heh, I remember back in the good ol’ college days my friends and I all made our career decisions based on the professions that get sued the least.

Didn’t everbody?!

Very Red but who could possibly think that not knowing facts like this is okay. I haven’t had kids in school for many years but what the heck are they teaching if not stuff like this?

No kidding. If you really want more doctors make sure colleges don’t offer any pre-med classes before noon. You’ll have students lining up to be pre-med majors. :-)

In this country two things are certain:
1.Repugnican’ts put the country in the hole.Dems.pull it back out.
2.History repeats.

Newt Gingrich is a hero, creationism, delusional reading.

general comment.this morning c-span had dr. cortese, ceo and pesident of the mayo clinic on. i want what he was selling, the best medical attention on the planet and at an affordable price. i want a medical plan from the mayo clinic. dr, cortese needs to be the new face on our healthcare.

The question is not how many students want to go to medical school but what is the capacity of the medical schools.

What’s going on with the investigation into Kyl’s various little schemes? He has several federal investigations pending, no?

Don’t even get me started on Texas! I posted this over at Greg Sargents:
26% of Texans have no health insurance- one in four. The highest % in the nation. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it, Kyle.

Texas is one of the lowest in funding for mental health *in good times* and those providers are being stretched to the breaking point in the current climate.

The LAST thing anyone ought to do is “be like Texas”. Effing idiot.

Texas is one of the lowest in funding for mental health

Damn if the result of that isn’t demonstrated every day

HEH! Watch that shit. There are Texans here. *g*

I’ve lived in Texas for 28 years and love it in spite of what makes it an ass-backwards place.

Apologies for repeating what Blue Texan wrote at the top-just my department of redundancy department checking in.

About 3 below plant life.

Thirty years ago, Kyl was the chief lobbyist for the Chamber of Commerce before the state legislature, and that’s where I first met him. And in all these years, he hasn’t changed. Not. One. Iota. He channels the COC and he will until the day he retires of dies of old age.

And yet, a couple of weeks ago, the local affiliate of PBS, called Horizon, hosted a debate on health care. One was a surgeon, and he was emphatic that Obama’s program sucked, and royally. As such, he would have a difficult time maintaining his two million plus per year. The second person, was a primary care physician and his argument was that Medicare payments covered his overhead but did not permit him to make a profit for all his hard work. And the third person, the former Director of the State Health Services Department, advocated for ‘open access’ to the VA’s medical systemic.

Consequently, Kyl is probably one of the top three smartest Senators among the 100, and yet, he will ‘manufacture’ a political position at the drop of the hat, and all from the perspective of the Chamber of Commerce. Thus, one needs only to understand the full panoly of ‘arguments’ being made by the Chamber, and Kyl will carry this leaking bucket of water with nary a drop spilled.

In summary, do not underestimate Kyl and as the Number Two Jefe among the Right, he can eat your lunch and done easily. He was ‘behind the curtain’ during McCain’s campaign, but it was a difficult stretch, since Kyl knows that McCain is ‘confused’. And Kyl hides behind McConnell, and will eventually jettison McConnell when the time becomes both appropriate and convenient. Moreover, he is Ambition Personified and to the Nth degree.

Jaango

Sorry, Kyl’s not smart enough to be calculating. He couldn’t calculate his own age.

I have people in Tucson who would agree.
And welcome!