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Doctors lobby keeps supply of doctors limitedWhy cannot we have H1B for doctors ? I agree that having more hospitals and doctors will definitely bring down the prices...but that assumes everyone pays from their pocket....Here we are talking about insurance based health care...Even if you sneeze you need to go through your insurance ....And "for profit" insurance has no motive to really look after poor sick people...
Why cannot we have H1B for doctors ? They do! part of exchange programs. Not to mention some doctors who intern here, move back home, along with their patients.. I read how India and Thailand health care is growing with Medical Tourism. So keeping a limited supply of doctors doesnt work. Its much cheaper and easier to go overseas. Do a search on india thailand medical tourism Its extremely difficult to get in to medical profession isn US ..period. For engineer’s , the end customer ( companies who hire) determine what qualifications they need. In Medicine, the end customer (hospital or patient) DON’T decide what qualifies a doctor, its the freaking AMA. AMA keeps the barrier of entry very high by putting too much red tape and licencing requirements. Its similar to a communist govt trying to control everything. AMA (doctors lobby) is very powerful which contraints the supply of medical schools and entry into them. It also has one of the most cubersome and lengthy licensing requirements in the world. thier main goal is to keep the supply of doctors low to boost the salaries of existing doctors..similar to unions. I wish there was some lobby like that for software engineers so that i could get 300k for my work.Very well said renter...I knew AMA was making sure that H1Bs do not start taking their jobs...But you summarized the situation succinctly.
in a free market, a human service can never become a bottleneck..example : prostitution will never be a limited resource in a free market unless govt intervenes.I have seen this in Europe...I have no idea how America became such a Nanny state. But america had to struggle and to come to terms with their violent (towards native americans) racist (towards blacks) past... I guess while trying to do that they became excessively religious and excessively money minded...My friend who visited me from overseas was joking that only time he sees americans smiling is when they are receiving money...I tried to counteract his point but had to agree to some extent...
2) Doctors lobby keeps supply of doctors limitedHeh, Where did you get that from? 1. From my understanding doctors have little lobbying power. It is the insurance companies who have the power and can determine how much a doctor will get paid for someone. 2. one of the main reason for the shortage of primary doctors is because a lot of them are leaving the feild to make more money doing something else. Fewer and fewer people want to waste 8+ years of there life to only get paid the scraps left for them from the insurance companies. I know of atleast 3 doctors who have left there practes within the last few years because health insurance companies squized out any hopes of them becoming profitable again.
in a free market, a human service can never become a bottleneck..example : prostitution will never be a limited resource in a free market unless govt intervenes.No, prostitution will not become legal in US. Sarcasm Things that will be legal are those that add greatest contribution to GDP and economy. Economists at Wall street firms have identified that prostitution is not that beneficial to economy as perversion is. If people can get their sexual needs fulfilled, think of millions of jobs lost in perversion industry also known as porn. Goldman Sucks has estimated that the total size of porn industry is around 10 billion dollars, this includes porn on internet and porn video industry in Calipornia near north of LA. Also, even though ban on prostitution will be enforced rigidly, govt will let nudie bars flourish. Cops will be posted in nudie bars to enforce the law that the patrons cannot touch the dancers. All these actions will make sure that perversion industry flourishes and Goldman sucks and JPM make billions. Abby Joseph Cohen, the evil incarnate of Goldman sucks, has again predicted a bull market in porn industry. end of Sarcasm
“Anyone who feels the training level of american docs is excessive to their needs or who desires to save money on their health care is free to go anywhere in the world they would like to get their health care†Why should we go elsewhere in the world ? why not here in US ? why i am not free to get prescription from a less trained doc in US. why am i not able to get a doc who has only highschool + 5 years medical school in US.I know many countries do that and accredit them so that patients make the decicion wheather to use them or go to someone with more training.WHY CANâ€T A CONSUMER HAVE THAT FREEDOM ? I thought freedom is so important in this country. what happened to “freedom to choose†We make life and death decisions everyday. do you think people are not smart enough to choose the doctor with the right training based on what they want the treatment for? I want to go to a 10+ years trained surgeon for my heart surgery but not for my common cold.You can. They are called nurse practitioners. Granted they have to be working under the supervision of an MD, but they can prescribe drugs and treat basic illnesses.
Money will be valueless before homes. Everyone in cash has lost 10% this year playing it safe.I presume you mean that for most people, paying down the mortgage is the best "investment." If so I wholeheartedly agree. After credit cards and other high interest loans are taken care of, of course. I had saved up enough money during my 15 year AF career that when I retired (they allowed 15 year retirements then because of the drawdown) to be able to pay $138k cash for a house, plus $12k cash for a Nissan Sentra for the wife. I chose to live in an area (Hampton VA) where $138k buys a new 2400 sq ft 4 bed 2.5 bath 2 car. Paying cash also knocks down the price, along with avoiding loan points, etc. Wages aren't low here either, I currently make over $100k not including retirement pay. Since I owned my home outright since retiring in 1995, I have been able to put away the cash. I do not agree that cash has lost 10%. At least, I don't want to think that because I have over $500k in CDs in various local credit unions. Some of these CDs are long term and paying 6%. Unfortunately, all those come due by next year and I will be lucky to get 2% after that. Also, I bought a new loaded Honda Odyssey in April to replace my wife's 14 year old Sentra. I was able to buy it for less than what used 2008 Odysseys were going for. In fact, we checked out Toyota, Nissan, and Hyundai vehicles as we were shopping. All the dealers were knocking $5,000 or so off the sticker within minutes of us showing interest in the car. For now at least, it seems cash is becoming more valuable. Since I plan to buy another house in two years, it seems that as prices fall my cash is yet becoming more valuable. I have been hearing the "cash is stupid" and "paying off your mortgage is dumb" for quite some time. Yet those people who had the same pay as me (other AF Officers), who took out big mortgages to "invest" in a "leveraged" asset, had "brokers" and "financial advisors" have not managed to build assets like I have. So far, I have done quite well by paying off debt first and putting cash in long term insured CDs. Living within ones means makes this possible. You may recall from my other posts that I did own rental property, and sold all but one during 2003-2005. But I did use savings to pay cash for one of these properties, and selling them only contributed about $100k to my $500k savings, along with allowing me to pay off the mortgage on the one rental property I kept. Nothing wrong with paying off the mortgage on the residence, and packing the rest into rate shopped insured CDs.
camping saysAs usual, I don't understand what you are talking about. I didn't come up with the set of labels, I just asked which applied to him. I'm not sure if he included your label in his list.So Nomo, considering you are still posting, where do you fall in your list? -trolls, wing nuts, conspiracy theorists, and the tin foil hat crowd. Or do you happen to be the exception…You and your cohorts are the only “tin foil hat’s†I see….probably never landed on the moon because it was statistically improbable huh cheesy…I mean campy…
Then there is the issue of incentive. what incentive does a patient have in going to a nurse when the copay is the same whether he goes to a nurse or to a M.D ..nothing. the co-pay is the same. looks like health care is broken from both supply and demand side.Absolutely a problem. This highlights the issue of why our current insurance system causes costs to spiral, because patients don't use health insurance as insurance (which by definition should cover catastrophic things not day to day charges). Unfortunately IMO, universal care tends to make this a larger problem as now everything is paid for by the government and patients aren't responsible for any of their spend on healthcare. This is why I feel that things like HSAs are the right answer, whereby a patient (or government subsidy) pays for the first X dollars of healthcare. Patients then are inclined to shop around and get the best value for their money. Then at a point once costs go over X dollars, all costs are paid for by insurance. This requires a serious amount of clarity in costs that currently do not exist in our system today.
knewbetter saysPossibly. But let me point out that a house can be a liability where the owner must cough up for maintenance and taxes, where cash in the bank incurs no liabilities. Think Detroit, Buffalo, and even some recently built Cali developments where the houses have low to zero market value, but significant costs to the owner. Homes can have a negative value, but not cash. What did you mean in your earlier post about "Amero?" Do you believe USA and Canada will merge, declare the dollar invalid and issue a new currency? Or do you mean some kind of devalue scheme to invalidate foriegn debt?Money will be valueless before homes.BINGO!
knewbetter saysAnd with all those inflated money, did you see a salary increase?Money will be valueless before homes.BINGO!
We also had a drop of 5 percent in average wages which when spread over the entire workforce equates to several million job losses in terms of lost buying power.Yep. Unemployment will only slow and reverse when wages decrease to a level where people can be affordably employed. This may not be the loss in buying power you say, since the prices for goods will continue to fall as well.
A buddy had the same thing happen and ended up losing his deposit. The management sent in the deposit to the home owner then gave him a 14 day notice to vacate. Told him he was SOL on the deposit.Is that a property manager you are talking about? In most states, the deposit belongs to the tenant, and any witholding of deposit funds must be accompanied by a itemized list, usually within 30 days after the end of tenancy. Landlord and management companies that violate the deposit rules open themselves up to an easy lawsuit.
>> France Fights Universal Care’s High Cost I am not surprised that WSJ is busy finding imperfections in other countries’ universal health care, and trying to plant the seeds of doubt with it. Certainly, no health care system is cheap, nor perfect. But we have the worst care and LEAST cost effective system in the western hemisphere. France not being 110% perfect is NOT a valid excuse to do nothing.Right on dude....WSJ, Goldman Sach, JPM ...These are the parasites that have eaten the america's basic fabric. I knew this great engineer who was so good at doing what he used to do..that is code and design....He started reading WSJ and the story of evil people that it tries to narrate and make them like role models...within 2 years the guy is completely broke...he lost lot of money in the stock market also...and since he stopped putting his time in his core skills he also became a prime candidate for layoffs...
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