If I am understanding what you wrote, these individuals are just working at their jobs, or they are small business owners. They are not serving the public good, they are just in it to make a buck. I just cannot have empathy for those whose only real complaint appears to be that they need to make more money.

I confess myself mystified that you took this meaning from what I wrote.

Teachers get paid, but relative to many other jobs they are not well paid. I’ve never met a teacher, nor a doc, who was ‘only in it to make a buck’ who was worth a damn at their work.

The finest researchers, docs, and nurses that I’ve been privileged to encounter are actually not in it for the money. Among those that I’ve encountered, they would actually make more money in private practices, but take HMO, research positions, and work with rural communities because they believe that they can make a difference in people’s lives. Further, it has been my experience that within their own social networks they judge people by their integrity and personal contributions more than they judge them by the kinds of cars they drive or whether they have 3 vacation homes.

I would also say the same is true of teachers and professors that I know.

In medicine and education, I’ve never met anyone at whose primary motive was money who was really at the top of their profession.

Good docs know who the good docs are.
Good teachers know who the other good teachers are.

There are people in medicine and in education whose primary motive is financial security, but in my personal experience those are not the people in the field who are most admired by their colleagues. Tolerated, yes. Enjoyed, sometimes.

I’ve told you everything that matters, so will now close on my end.

“Though I believe that this may be an unpopular view, I view Dr’s the same way that I view govt. employees, and teachers: they are to serve the public good. They went to college, studied hard, got their degrees, found jobs, and made money. If I am understanding what you wrote, these individuals are just working at their jobs, or they are small business owners. They are not serving the public good, they are just in it to make a buck. I just cannot have empathy for those whose only real complaint appears to be that they need to make more money.

What would the Dr’s have to complain about if the Health Care reform bill was to include the option for new Dr’s to have all of their College loans forgiven + malpractice insurance paid for by our Government if they agree to accept Medicare & Medicaid as payment in full for services rendered for the first 10 years after they graduate? The graduates could choose to be involved with this program or not. I believe that an approach such as this would work…2 birds – 1 stone.”

I believe that this is a workable concept that could work out well for everyone who chooses to participate. Considering the millions of children, elderly, and the disabled who have been the main users of these programs, the afore mentioned concept would be a win-win situation for those health professionals who chose to participate and the patients.

Our President has said that he doesn’t see the need for Medicare Advantage plans to pay for services that Medicare recipients are already entitled to receive. In WA State if you are receiving Medicare and SSI, Medicaid pays your Part B and Part D premium and covers your dental and vision. You do not need to belong to an HMO to receive this benefit. All services are paid directly through Medicare/Medicaid to the provider. This system of health care delievery and payment eliminates the need to pay someone/something to do a job that our government already does quite efficiently.

The time is now, and the dream shall never die. Medicare for all :)

Criminally corrupt politicians are the reason the U.S. is ranked near the bottom of every catagory when ranked next to other modern, industrialized nations. Time for publically funded elections.

lieberman $12.6M, mcconnell $7.8M, baucus $7.7M, cornyn $6.7M,
kyl $5.6M, grassley $5.4M, ensign $5.2M, conrad $5.1M, cantor $4.9M,
nelson $4.9M, burr $4.8M, boehner $4.4M, hatch $4.4M, lincoln $4.1M,
vitter $3.9M, carper $3.6M were paid by the Medical Industrial Complex to kill Health Care Reform. (Source: OpenSecrets.org, Aug. 09)

Follow the Money: Link

Call Congress and demand, Single-Payer Health Care for All!

(Toll Free # House and Senate)
1-866-338-1015 _____ 1-866-220-0044
1-800-473-6711 _____ 1-866-311-3405

Sign Single-Payer Petitions: Link Link

Don’t let the Medical Industrial Complex steal your Health Care from you and your family by donating huge sums of money to Crooked Politicians in order to maintain the Status Quo. Keep up the good fight.

SEMPER FI!

THE HEALTH ENTITIES TAX ACT!

Next Congress Invokes Interstate commerce clause and regulates interstate commerce by Setting a:

THE HEALTH INSURANCE STANDARDIZATION AND SIMPLIFICATION ACT

Across the country all American will have access to health care regardless of age race sex. You see insurance corporations discriminate and set rates according to age sex and race, all measures of discrimination, ILLEGAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Health insurance corporations operating at the state level regardless of tax status are using discrimination, under the color of contractual law, and statE’S rights to achieve this systemic sodomizationn of the American people. Segregationist and Jim Crow laws usurped the constitutional rights AND CIVIL RIGHTS of American for decades. State sponsored discrimination is illegal. Slavery illegal. Corporate insures have taken a page out of the segregationist/slave owners handbook, at the state level they exercise the same discriminatory practices when fucking Americans and America under the color of law in the lust for perpetual profit, as Jefferson warned!

Kings and cohorts in colonial corporate crime raped the colonist many a time. In 200+ years we have become that which we severed our ties from…..

Corporate servitude is no different from servitude to a King. Jefferson understood this! What the fuck is wrong with America!! Silent Germans and Greedy Assholes?

I know docs who have given their services for free, because they live frugally and went into medicine to serve people. I know other docs who live well, but still donate their expertise at very little, or no, cost.

However, when a physician has to cut a paycheck to his/her receptionist, nurse practitioners, etc, etc, they have to cover that check. The money to cover that check comes from providing services. If they don’t generate enough revenue from the services that they provide, then they are not able to pay their staff — and the doc is already working for free at that point.

It actually does happen.
Practices actually do shut down for precisely this reason.

Cantwell is saying: we have to change the cost structure from that pay-for-service model to a model where the healthCo’s don’t profit from taking your money, then contracting with docs, then selling that contract to yet ANOTHER healthCo (who will then take that contracted amount and reduce it, with docs caught unable to change the amount they are reimbursed).

Who makes money there?
The healthCos.

We need to shake the healthCo profits lose so that we have more money actually being used to provide health care (as opposed to say, exec bonuses and corporate jets).

I watch the CSPAN streaming video on a RealPlayer.
That was developed by Real Networks.

Part of the thinking behind all these technologies, IIRC, was to pull away the curtain of the very kind of backroom, secrecy-drenched bullshit that’s gone on in this nation for at least 150 years, when Senate Hearings were invisible to all of us.

So why anyone other than a troll would call Cantwell a ‘douchebag’ for contributing to technologies that help make transparency possible escapes me entirely.

Although, given the fact that Frist and his family own mega-hospital (with billing operations) interests, it’s no surprise whatsoever that health care didn’t come up when he was Sen Majority Leader under GOP reign.

Docs that I’ve heard are **completely** fed up with the current system of control by healthCos (who, arguably, are just a front op for Wall Street gamblers).