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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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 Posted: Wed Feb 03, 2010 6:06 am Post subject: |
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Ya-ta. Do you think that was a meaningful contribution? This isn't the MSNBC OMG Olbermann Appreciation Forums you camp out at. If you have nothing of substance to contribute, just go back to shouting at passing clouds shaped like the GOP.
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| From when are you counting these 4 years, the beginning of med school? College? Kindergarten? |
Upon graduation from high school. 4 years is more than sufficient. |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Wed Feb 03, 2010 6:44 am Post subject: |
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| mises wrote: |
Ya-ta. Do you think that was a meaningful contribution? This isn't the MSNBC OMG Olbermann Appreciation Forums you camp out at. If you have nothing of substance to contribute, just go back to shouting at passing clouds shaped like the GOP.
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| From when are you counting these 4 years, the beginning of med school? College? Kindergarten? |
Upon graduation from high school. 4 years is more than sufficient. |
For someone like you who admitted that econ was 20% fact and 80% fantasy...err, 'theory', yeah, I do think it's an appropriate reminder that the market is as much a smoke screen as crawling into a closet and talking to the shadows.
Your posts would be much more believable if you kept to the 20% and gave an alert when you crossed into the theory part. |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Wed Feb 03, 2010 7:02 am Post subject: |
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The United States has in excess of 100 trillion in liabilities. There is no combination of tax increases and spending decreases that will pay that down. That is to say, if you do get something like socialized medical care, it will only bring nearer the day of financial reckoning for the United States government.
As such, the only reasonable course of action is to break up the various oligopolies, and not via the DOJ. Adding a super-monopoly as a replacement to the oligopolies, yet on top of the same political-economy, will bring only disaster and ruin.
I've posted an example of affordable primary care. Such an arrangement could easily be expanded to the wider economy and deal with many of the financial issues the government and Americans face. And this is the reply:
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| I do think it's an appropriate reminder that the market is as much a smoke screen as crawling into a closet and talking to the shadows. |
This is the problem. Ideas are dead. They've been replaced by axe grinding, platitudes from cable networks (that received billions in bailouts) and platitudes.
The lesson? They system can not be reformed. It will have to hit a brick wall and disintegrate before sustainability can be built. |
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bacasper
Joined: 26 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Wed Feb 03, 2010 8:15 am Post subject: |
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| Fox wrote: |
| any sign that a current general practice doctor could catch, a 4 year practicioner could be trained to catch too. |
Not sure of the distinction you are making between "general" and "4 year" practitioner. One can do general practice after four years of med school. Some guys open a general practice after a 3 or 4 year residency in Internal Medicine, but it is not necessary. |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Wed Feb 03, 2010 8:21 am Post subject: |
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| bacasper wrote: |
| Fox wrote: |
| any sign that a current general practice doctor could catch, a 4 year practicioner could be trained to catch too. |
Not sure of the distinction you are making between "general" and "4 year" practitioner. One can do general practice after four years of med school. Some guys open a general practice after a 3 or 4 year residency in Internal Medicine, but it is not necessary. |
4-yr bachelor of science + 4 year medical degree. Cut out the first half. In Singapore, a medical degree is 4-5 years. Best doctors I've ever dealt with. Though they do everything better than us. |
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beck's
Joined: 02 Aug 2006
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| Posted: Wed Feb 03, 2010 8:52 am Post subject: |
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Mises, I think there is a lot to be said for market based medical care. In Canada we have socialized medicine and the big talk now is how the premier of Newfoundland went to the States for a heart operation. The line up in Canada was too long.
I understand how routine medical care would be an out-of-pocket expense and that serious conditions would be covered by insurance.
How do you see it working? Suppose we paid insurance for twenty or thirty years. What would stop the insurance company from dropping us as customers when we reached an age where serious medical problems would be likely to occur?
Everyone eventually reaches this point. It's not like a car insurance where you may or may not get into an accident. With people's health it's definately a sure thing that expensive medical conditions will occur. |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Wed Feb 03, 2010 8:58 am Post subject: |
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| Yeah, good questions. I don't know. I'm not a market fundamentalist in regards to health policy. If an either/or, I pick the Canadian system. But I much preferred the arrangement I had in Asia where I paid for dr visits out of pocket (usually around 20USD or less) and had insurance in case of huge problems. The details... |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Wed Feb 03, 2010 4:08 pm Post subject: |
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| bacasper wrote: |
| Fox wrote: |
| any sign that a current general practice doctor could catch, a 4 year practicioner could be trained to catch too. |
Not sure of the distinction you are making between "general" and "4 year" practitioner. One can do general practice after four years of med school. Some guys open a general practice after a 3 or 4 year residency in Internal Medicine, but it is not necessary. |
When I say 4 years, I'm referring to a 4 year degree immediately following high school. |
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Senior
Joined: 31 Jan 2010
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| Posted: Wed Feb 03, 2010 5:19 pm Post subject: |
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| mises wrote: |
| Yeah, good questions. I don't know. I'm not a market fundamentalist in regards to health policy. If an either/or, I pick the Canadian system. But I much preferred the arrangement I had in Asia where I paid for dr visits out of pocket (usually around 20USD or less) and had insurance in case of huge problems. The details... |
I don't have any expertise or major opinion in this area. But some of the smart guys I read and listen to advocate a subsidized health savings account, coupled with catastrophic illness/accident insurance. If you are poor you get bigger subsidies. This means that people are more likely to shop around when buying drugs and getting primary care. |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Wed Feb 03, 2010 5:28 pm Post subject: |
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| Senior wrote: |
| mises wrote: |
| Yeah, good questions. I don't know. I'm not a market fundamentalist in regards to health policy. If an either/or, I pick the Canadian system. But I much preferred the arrangement I had in Asia where I paid for dr visits out of pocket (usually around 20USD or less) and had insurance in case of huge problems. The details... |
I don't have any expertise or major opinion in this area. But some of the smart guys I read and listen to advocate a subsidized health savings account, coupled with catastrophic illness/accident insurance. If you are poor you get bigger subsidies. This means that people are more likely to shop around when buying drugs and getting primary care. |
The thing is, if you can only spend a give portion of money on health care (as with a health savings account), then you're going to value said money differently and use it differently than you would with money you can use on anything you want. Paying out of pocket provides maximum encouragement to minimize price and avoid totally needless work. It's also just as possible to subsidize via tax credits, if subsidization is the route you want to go.
If we're going to try to utilize a free market approach to lowering prices, I don't think health savings accounts have any advantages over just paying out of pocket. |
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jaykimf
Joined: 24 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Wed Feb 03, 2010 5:47 pm Post subject: |
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| mises wrote: |
| bacasper wrote: |
| Fox wrote: |
| any sign that a current general practice doctor could catch, a 4 year practicioner could be trained to catch too. |
Not sure of the distinction you are making between "general" and "4 year" practitioner. One can do general practice after four years of med school. Some guys open a general practice after a 3 or 4 year residency in Internal Medicine, but it is not necessary. |
4-yr bachelor of science + 4 year medical degree. Cut out the first half. In Singapore, a medical degree is 4-5 years. Best doctors I've ever dealt with. Though they do everything better than us. |
That really doesn't make sense to me. Even if they could be qualified after only 4 years of medical school without the BS , how would that help? It obviously wouldn't make them more qualified. I guess you think that would result in more Doctors. I don't think so. There is no shortage of qualified students perfectly willing to go through the full 8 year program. How many thousands of fully qualified students are turned away from medical schools every year because there isn't enough space for them? Eliminating the 4 year BS degree requirement would do nothing to increase the number of students that medical schools are willing and able to accept. |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Wed Feb 03, 2010 7:14 pm Post subject: |
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It obviously wouldn't make them more qualified.
I guess you think that would result in more Doctors. |
It would result in less indebted doctors who had a lower opportunity cost to become dr's. This reduces upfront costs.
Also, more of them. Pre-med programs can easily become medical programs. And wrestle control of the # of medical schools/students from the AMA.
But the biggest change must come from minor specialization. There is little use in going to a GP for everything that is wrong with your body. Open it up. Have hang nail specialists (don't even need 4 years for that). Broken bone specialists. Open it up wide. No sense in going to a GP for everything. |
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ontheway
Joined: 24 Aug 2005
Location: Somewhere under the rainbow...
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| Posted: Thu Feb 04, 2010 10:56 am Post subject: |
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| beck's wrote: |
Mises, I think there is a lot to be said for market based medical care. In Canada we have socialized medicine and the big talk now is how the premier of Newfoundland went to the States for a heart operation. The line up in Canada was too long.
I understand how routine medical care would be an out-of-pocket expense and that serious conditions would be covered by insurance.
How do you see it working? Suppose we paid insurance for twenty or thirty years. What would stop the insurance company from dropping us as customers when we reached an age where serious medical problems would be likely to occur?
Everyone eventually reaches this point. It's not like a car insurance where you may or may not get into an accident. With people's health it's definately a sure thing that expensive medical conditions will occur. |
Government regulation has prevented the creation of the types of insurance needed by the public and preferred by providers. We must repeal all taxes on income and property and rely on a consumption tax. These taxes cause too many distortions in the marketplace to be allowed and they are not fixable.
This will allow insurance and direct health expenditures to flow without subsidies and penalties that cause massive distortions and prevent the creation of market insurance. We also have to eliminate state rules that prevent policies form being sold and transfered across state lines.
The result will be that people will be able to buy their own individual policies cheaper than they now buy group policies. Insurance companies will offer "whole life" health insurance just as they offer "whole life" life insurance today.
Whole life insurance is portable, non cancellable and can be purchased by parents on behalf of a child (or at any age thereafter) and held throughout the lifetime of the insured. Free market, cradle to grave coverage is possible and cheaper if we only get the government out of the way.
This is better for individuals because they are secure and covered for a lifetime.
It is better for insurance companies because they can offer insurance without continuous marketing costs. Sell a policy once for a lifetime.
Best of all, without government mucking up the insurance business, we can have policies that only provide major and catastrophic medical insurance, leaving health maintenance to out of pocket payments. And with no income taxes, no special accounts for medical costs, IRAs for retirement or home ownership are needed. All income will be in a tax free, free market - all government distortions eliminated - prior to consumption.
(Of course, the consumption tax must be limited to a maximum of 10% in the aggregate for all levels of government, and applied equally across the board for all goods and services.) |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Thu Feb 04, 2010 2:05 pm Post subject: |
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Here's a summary of dr compensation in the US:
http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2010/02/physician-compensation-data-for-68.html
As Jaykimf pointed out, many perfectly able and intelligent individuals are not able to get into medical school. I have no problem with what others earn, but those salaries suggest to me that a key problem is the restriction of supply. |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Thu Feb 25, 2010 9:11 am Post subject: |
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From Reason TV:
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When it comes to health care, who gets treated better�man or man's best friend?
Of course, it's hard to make an apples-to-apples comparison when you're comparing four-legged patients to people, and there are many ways in which human care tops pet care.
But pet owners told Reason.tv there are some ways where it would be a step up to be treated like a dog. |
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nasHbuizvwE&feature=player_embedded# |
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