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No, the US needs to stop over-paying their doctors. And doctors need to stop being corrupt by reducing supply of doctors through restrictive medical school ent

No, the US needs to stop over-paying their doctors. And doctors need to stop being corrupt by reducing supply of doctors through restrictive medical school entry.

rscho 8y ago
Then, you should be targeting lobbyists and politicians. Front line workers (including doctors) are a very poor target for pressure if you want to achieve the same level of care for a cheaper price (including cheaper docs). The only result of your conspirationistic views will be worse care for a higher price. But, I suppose no one will be able to sway you from your current opinion...
- cmrdporcupine 8y ago
  Nobody is 'targeting' the doctors or front-line-workers themselves really. It's the medical professional associations and the power they wield over admissions and thus restricted supply that are a bit of a concern. There's an odd balancing act in Canada. On one hand it was doctors that fought (tooth and nail) against the introduction of "single-player" (we just call it Medicare) back in Saskatchewan in the 60s, including going on an (unsuccessful) strike. And they are continually in a battle with the provincial governments about rates, because in Canada (unlike the NHS in the UK) doctors are independent businesses and not on salary (unless they're in the hospital system I believe?) On the other hand, doctors in Canada have become huge advocates of our Medicare system and a big political opponent of privatization and tiered medicine generally. Not completely, but on the whole and through their professional organizations. 50ish years of working with the medicare system and seeing its outcomes, and seeing the failure to our south I think has made our doctors advocates of our system. Canada's system is by no means perfect. It's probably not a good model for the U.S. as it is. But it's much better than what the U.S. has. In general wait times here are a product of restricted resources, not institutional inefficiences per se. MRI machines are expensive, and doctors ration their use based on evidence-based criterion. E.g. no MRIs and back surgeries for non-specific low back pain, etc. because medical science doesn't really support it. It's also worth pointing out that it was a huge battle to get it here. A big struggle that was successful at the time because at that point Canada's left wing was much stronger, and we had no strongly entrenched insurance mafia like in the U.S. Also Canada, as a British ex-colony, had the U.K's NHS as a model, and politics here was still _very_ strongly influenced by U.K. politics, where the Labour party was very strong. I'm not sure what the path to U.S. single payer would be, but it would be very difficult one.
nradov 8y ago
Restrictive medical school admissions aren't the problem. The real bottleneck is in the number of residency slots available for medical school graduates. Every year people graduate with an MD degree but are unable to actually practice medicine because they can't get matched to a residency slot. Most residency programs are federally funded, although some are also funded directly by teaching hospitals. If you want a larger supply of doctors then lobby the federal government for more residency program funding. And knock off the uniformed conspiracy theories. https://news.aamc.org/for-the-media/article/gme-funding-doctor-shortage/ https://news.aamc.org/for-the-media/article/gme-funding-doct...
collyw 8y ago
Is it bad that medical school entry is restrictive? Isn't the idea that you only want smart people to do it.

No, the US needs to stop over-paying their doctors. And doctors need to stop being corrupt by reducing supply of doctors through restrictive medical school entry.

rscho 8y ago

Then, you should be targeting lobbyists and politicians. Front line workers (including doctors) are a very poor target for pressure if you want to achieve the same level of care for a cheaper price (including cheaper docs). The only result of your conspirationistic views will be worse care for a higher price. But, I suppose no one will be able to sway you from your current opinion...

cmrdporcupine 8y ago
Nobody is 'targeting' the doctors or front-line-workers themselves really. It's the medical professional associations and the power they wield over admissions and thus restricted supply that are a bit of a concern. There's an odd balancing act in Canada. On one hand it was doctors that fought (tooth and nail) against the introduction of "single-player" (we just call it Medicare) back in Saskatchewan in the 60s, including going on an (unsuccessful) strike. And they are continually in a battle with the provincial governments about rates, because in Canada (unlike the NHS in the UK) doctors are independent businesses and not on salary (unless they're in the hospital system I believe?) On the other hand, doctors in Canada have become huge advocates of our Medicare system and a big political opponent of privatization and tiered medicine generally. Not completely, but on the whole and through their professional organizations. 50ish years of working with the medicare system and seeing its outcomes, and seeing the failure to our south I think has made our doctors advocates of our system. Canada's system is by no means perfect. It's probably not a good model for the U.S. as it is. But it's much better than what the U.S. has. In general wait times here are a product of restricted resources, not institutional inefficiences per se. MRI machines are expensive, and doctors ration their use based on evidence-based criterion. E.g. no MRIs and back surgeries for non-specific low back pain, etc. because medical science doesn't really support it. It's also worth pointing out that it was a huge battle to get it here. A big struggle that was successful at the time because at that point Canada's left wing was much stronger, and we had no strongly entrenched insurance mafia like in the U.S. Also Canada, as a British ex-colony, had the U.K's NHS as a model, and politics here was still _very_ strongly influenced by U.K. politics, where the Labour party was very strong. I'm not sure what the path to U.S. single payer would be, but it would be very difficult one.

nradov 8y ago

Restrictive medical school admissions aren't the problem. The real bottleneck is in the number of residency slots available for medical school graduates. Every year people graduate with an MD degree but are unable to actually practice medicine because they can't get matched to a residency slot. Most residency programs are federally funded, although some are also funded directly by teaching hospitals. If you want a larger supply of doctors then lobby the federal government for more residency program funding. And knock off the uniformed conspiracy theories. https://news.aamc.org/for-the-media/article/gme-funding-doctor-shortage/ https://news.aamc.org/for-the-media/article/gme-funding-doct...

collyw 8y ago

Is it bad that medical school entry is restrictive? Isn't the idea that you only want smart people to do it.