At 09:33 AM on Thursday July 7th 2009 (245 Days 2 Hours ago)
Ratha posted the following:


I agree entirely that the service for top tier plans needs to remain unchanged. It seems like there needs to be a split.. that we will absolutely need to have doctors who still run private practices. Perhaps in a slightly reduced number then we have today if many people are going to be switching to a public plan. The option still needs to be there. But in order to cover the rest of the public under said public plan, we would likely need to train more doctors.

I wonder if colleges pushing incentives on students who dont know what path they want to take would help fill that future need for more private or public doctors before we find ourselves with a shortage? Perhaps as part of the course to getting to their own private practice, have doctors complete a couple years in the public sector before being licensed for private care where they can then choose their own path?

It would seem to me that the newer generation of doctors are going to have many advantages over our older doctors, training with more state of the art equipment, computers and knowledge databases at their fingertips, this extremely long cycle of schooling could probably be reduced slightly as more information becomes easier to access, and the tools for which they have to work with become more advanced and easier to learn and use.

I could be wrong, but if the government is going to dump a ton of money into health care, the quality of health care due to new, faster, and easier to use equipment being installed to increase efficiencies could potentially balance out some of the increased workload and strain on the system. Our hospitals around here are flailing in the wind as it is half the time, generally understaffed and are often having budget cuts everywhere to the point where they are rationing blankets, towels, and other laundry that the nurses can give to patients. There was a lot of fighting over that stuff not too long ago.

At 11:43 AM on Friday July 7th 2009 (244 Days 0 Hours ago)
DranoK posted the following:


.. They already do.

I disagree this produces better doctors ;) Besides, all good doctors are always learning and attending training conferences.

Again, new technology doesn't necessarily mean better care. A $100,000 program of photon radiation therapy for colon cancer doesn't increase the likelihood of surviving any more than a $4000 program of "watchful care". Technology is a wonderful thing, yes, but just because something is shinier doesn't mean it's better.

The problem with a government plan is it will never pay the same amount as a private plan would. So doctors will either take a pay cut or only offer their services to those with private insurance. Businesses would rather shift their employee health care burden over to the government plan, however, so more and more people would end up with worse health insurance than they have now.

At least that's what my crystal ball says.