The Other Credit Crunch

Oh boo hoo doctors make too much. How about you go through 8 years of school + residency and then tell me you're overpaid. Yeah, thought so.

In fact, this is the biggest USA problem, because USA helth care costs 3-5times more than in Europe (10 times more than in Israel, where health care quality is proven to be the best in the world). There are several steps to make - reduce doctors liability, probably foirbid medical insurance for outpatient care, etc. Currently not Obama neither GOP are up to this task.

We believe we're entitiled to healthcare. We're not. The hospitals are for-profit. I have never had health insurance and have not had medical treatment of any kind. I may die early. That's too bad. I work 50 hours a week and have nothing but an apartment and some utilities. I ain't no fortunate one.

Plymouth Colony doesn't know what he is talking about. Physicians salaries haven't changed since the 80's. My husband finished residency in 1977. We watched salaries rise with the cost of living just like everyone else but in 1988 that all stopped. From that point on the 120,000 salary for an internist went to 90,000 in the early 1990's. We are now back up to 120,000 after 20 years. My husband works two jobs. At one he makes 50.00 per hour the other he makes 75.00 per hour. It costs me 75.00 just to have my plumber walk through the door and I am sure he doesn't get called in the middle of the night asking for advice for free!
Good luck to all of you thoughtless, ungratful people when you are sick and don't have a doctor to take care of you. With the cost of college and medical schools fewer people are going to medical school and doctors are telling their kids to find another business. They are burned out!
If you want to find blame, look to the HMO's. Why should an HMO pay for teeth whitening and gym fees? Go ask them!

What is truly difficult to swallow is the skyrocketing cost of both health insurance and medical care. As a 40-year old healthy adult, who has never been hospitalized or had a single procedure done, I pay more than $3000 a year for medical coverage for myself and my equally healthy husband. Just a month ago, I had a 20-minute out-patient procedure that had me in the out-patient surgery center for just 3 hours total. My bill? $5001. So, the hospital gets $1667/hour? That breakdown is just appalling to me. Did they really need to employ 5 different people to ask me the same 50 questions prior to the surgery? It seems that some of the standard procedures of this particular hospital, prior to surgery, are simply overkill and ridiculous. I don't intend to go back.

Last month my son broke his leg, went to ER. Hospital charged $300 for the internist to say it was broken and the Dt. incharge also $310.00 to say. Yes it broken on the x-ray, A blind man could see it.
Also how does a person keep up with insurance? Ten years ago had $1000 deductable and 20% co-pay for $350/month. Now have $10000 deductable with 20% co-pay for $340/month. But my income did not go up 10 fold as self-employed.

With hospital admittance down 9% as the article states, and they're probably not taking into consideration dropping visits to doctors offices, the indications are plain that the cost of health care has overwhelmed the average person and they're not getting adequate treatment. What this will mean is greatly increased costs down the road as these now easily treatable conditions are left to become major problems a decade from now. Good health care is becoming something only for those who can afford it, the rich and the politicians, while becoming nothing more than basic maintenance for everyone else, perhaps to deliberately shorten our life spans as a method to reduce social security and medicare costs. In this region of the country outsourcing of jobs has devastated the lives of many middle class (now ex middle class) workers, many unemployed, those that have foundjobs work for a fraction of what theyearned before, often without benefits now. Over 50% of the children qualify for the free lunch program at the schools, lines at the food kitchens grow weekly. People neglect medical care unless it's a catastropic situation, I know my wife and I never go, she only when she absolutely has to for a renewal of her high blood pressure medication prescription. Will this lack of care shorten our lives, as with thousands around us, more than likely, but what is the alternative, bills we can't pay, losing our house? I figure living on the street or under a bridge can't be too healthy either. People are already struggling to pay increasing property taxes caused by plants and mills shuttered due to outsourcing now falling off the tax base and shifting the burden to the homeowner, health care is now a luxury. The problem will only become worse, companies continue to send Americans jobs overseas, every job outsourced becomes another unemployed or under employed American, many times with no insurance, people who can't afford to shop, can't afford to buy cars, they simply survive. Local businesses fail and no longer pay local property and business taxes, they no longer employ local people, more people unable to afford hospital bills. The middle class has been crippled, and without the working middle class the money cycle stops, money no longer flows from corporate profits to employees who spend their earnings in their local communities which returns to corporate prifits. Now, that employee is in China, Pakistan or India, his earnings are not returned to the American economy, we're slowly grinding to a halt, and hospitals (some of which also outsource their clerical work to India) are victims. Who do they think is going to be left to pay the bills? Not me.

I know a married pair of ER docs on the economic brink because of all the uncompensated care Texas law requires them to provide. The immediate problem is the $150K each in education loans they owe. Perhaps loan-forgiveness in return for uncompensated care would be a first step.

Hoispitals are supposedly non-profit organizations. I have my years mammogram and am charged for the test, the doctor, the staff member who performed it and then of course, the oncologist who reads it. I have BC/BS and Medicare. Yet, I still am bill personally for over $200.00 each time. Yet, these two well known hospitals in Michigan, Royal Oak and Troy not mentioning the name have built the most ooutrageous additions, upon additions. At the Troy Hospital they have built a bridge spanning two counties so patients and doctors can get from the hospital to the medical building, the hospital is in Oakland County, the medical building in Macomb County. It seems to me if they wanted to cut cost they do not have to have so much giner bread trimmings on and in the buildings. The same is true with my physician. There use to be as many as 12 doctors in this practice, now two. And the odd thing is that each doctor charges their own set fees. Of course, the one I get is more expensive, than the other. The other a M. D. and owns the practice, mine an Osteopath and has been there lesser years. What ever happened to the good old doctor like Dr. Welby who use to make house calls and the patient was a person with a name, not just a number. I pray for the senior citizens (my spouse and I are in our 70's) who do not have insurance and have to decide if they would rather eat or buy their meds. Sorry situation for anyone who does not have insurance. I am blessed I have my insurance through my pension having worked 32 years as an educational secretary and it covers my spouse. Thank God with all the medical problems he has. I hope there is some answer for the uninsured and those who cannot afford medicine. It is so sad.