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["Lynda" <lurine AT com-pair.net>]

You are sort of right and sort of wrong <g>

Docs are retiring, now.   Some are just simply getting out of the 
run-your-own-office business.  Others are leaving practices to go to work 
for the insurance companies.  Up until now, insurance companies had a rough 
time getting docs to sit in an office and review charts.  Now they are 
having no problems filling those seats.  A lot are jumping ship to work at 
the bigger HMOs (Kaiser, Humana) where they work 9 to 5 and don't have to be 
on-call or pay for anything.

While a lot of docs are making the big bucks, it is mostly the specialists. 
And the docs who suffer from Tin God Syndrome (lord it over staff) are 
usually specialists and shrinks.

And, while Merck and where you work dusted off some meds, a lot of the 
invent the new diseases come from "oops, this doesn't work like we 
intended."

For the folks who haven't worked with coding, let me fill you in on how they 
decide there is a disease or condition to be treated.  Each year, sometimes 
two years, the folks who publish the lovely code books send out a request 
for, hmmmm, I guess you'd call it suggestions.  When a pharma company or 
group of docs or whatever decide they need a new coding, they give it a name 
(ADHD, for example) and get it in the code book and then they can go "wow, 
look at this.  we have a med to help you cure this problem that is in the 
code book."

Lynda
----- Original Message ----- 
From: <Clansgian AT wmconnect.com>
> There's a stock scene in sitcoms and movies where the cocky belligerent
> fellow is offended and jumps toward the offender while his friends 
> restrain him
> by the arms while he yells "Let me at him, let me at him!"     The the
> friends let him go and he stops, straightens his tie, looks left and right 
> and
> mumbles, "Yeah ... ah ... OK .."
>
> So all these doctors are going to close their offices, are they.  Horse
> hockey!  And then do what?  Oh, I'm such a brilliant fellow I could be 
> making
> millions as a CEO but instead I've dedicated myself to medicine!  Reminds 
> me
> so much of the Jim Croche song "Car Wash Blues."
>
> It's a lot like we keep hearing there's a shortage of teachers,  Go to any
> public place and throw a handful of gravel and you will hit 25 people who
> have degrees in education and could teach.
>
> But back to medicine, the problem is not primarily malpractice nor any of
> the other things mentioned, it is a mass and public hallucination that 16% 
> or
> more of all our efforts (GDP) needs to be devoted to us staying healthy 
> and
> treating out disease.
>
> Throughout history there has always been one group of people who rise up 
> in
> a society, convince people that they are doomed without them, then sponge
> off most of the wealth for themselves.  In some societies it was the
> military, in others the clergy, .... make us the wealthiest amongst you or 
> else you
> will be invaded, make us the wealthiest amonst you or else you will go to
> hell.
>
> Now days it's medicine.  Make the doctors a very wealthy class with a vast
> army of acolytes (nurses, technicians, therapists, etc.) to lord over or
> else you are going to die.
>
> There is no reason that "health care" should be anywhere near 16% of the
> GDP.
>
> First, says I, a health care system overall would have to stop inventing
> and treating imaginary illnesses.  As I've said before, I did work for a 
> long
> time for one of the largest pharmaceutical companies ever 
> (GlaxoSmithKline)
> and was witness to the process whereby the company pulled old drugs from
> it's repertoire that had been supplanted by better drugs from its 
> competition
> and than invent some disease for that drug to cure.  Drug first, disease
> afterwards.
>
> Next, any condition that could be treated by diet, exercise, and 
> meditation
> should be ineligable for medical intervention unless the person wants to
> pay for the whole thing out of pocket.  You'd immediately eliminate about 
> 50%
> of all medical treatment with this policy.
>
> Then eliminate insurance (or else go with a single payer).  People are
> presented with the myth that insurance companies want to keep medical 
> costs
> down.  Nothing could be farther from the case.  The industry operates from 
> a
> percent of the total amount of money involved.  Let's suppose that lawn 
> care
> operated like "health care".  Instead of anyone paying the mowers 
> directly,
> they all purchased lawn care policies.  If  you owned and ran a lawn care
> policy company which by regulation (same currently as health care) had to
> disburse 80% if its gross reciepts to mowers and kept the rest .... would 
> it be
> more to your advantage  if mowing a lawn cost $20 or $400?  You have no
> incentive to keep the cost to policy holders down ... just the opposite.
>
> One might wonder how some medieval societies where willing to live in
> abject poverty while the large cathedrals were being built and bishops 
> dressed in
> gold trimmed robes.  Well just look around at our "health care" industry
> and you'll see that things haven't changed all that much.
>
> </HTML>
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