25 years old and deep in debt

[alfred russel]

Then don't complain about the cost of healthcare. Over a century ago doctors came to your house like the pizza guy does and cost about as much. Now, it's swung completely the other way. I think maybe something in the middle would do us some good.

I don't, in general.

I don't understand the assumption that we spend too much on healthcare, but then not questioning how much we spend too much on consumer electronics, automobiles, or food. If I get the option of buying slightly a nicer car and eating out an extra few times a year or having a doctor that has a few more years of training, I'd rather have the doctor with more training.

[The Brain]

You're all over the place.

[LaCroix]

Then don't complain about the cost of healthcare. Over a century ago doctors came to your house like the pizza guy does and cost about as much. Now, it's swung completely the other way. I think maybe something in the middle would do us some good.

medical school isn't the reason for added costs of healthcare. costs have risen exponentially since.. what, 1970s or so? the requirement to attend medical school was in place quite a long time before that

over a century ago doctors did not have the technology, institutions or forms of treatments anywhere close to what they have today. your argument seems like it's more suggesting that we should essentially do away with medicine if we want to cut costs

[Eddie Teach]

Well, if you're already paying for lots of fancy machines, it's easier for the doctors to demand a bit of extra for themselves without the patients(or their insurance companies) balking as much. This ends up causing the basic care to cost more even when you're not using the fancy machines.

[LaCroix]

Well, if you're already paying for lots of fancy machines, it's easier for the doctors to demand a bit of extra for themselves without the patients(or their insurance companies) balking as much. This ends up causing the basic care to cost more even when you're not using the fancy machines.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/physiciansfoundation/2013/10/03/whos-to-blame-for-our-rising-healthcare-costs/

Something else is revealed by digging deeper into the key components in healthcare spending: Technology, administrative expenses, hospital costs, lifestyle choice and chronic disease conditions have all had greater impacts on rising overall healthcare costs than physicians.
...
Yet despite this, physicians are not necessarily the principal beneficiaries of healthcare spending. The bulk of medical procedure payments go to hospitals and device manufactures.  For example, in California, Medicare pays on average $18,000 for a total hip replacement – $16,336 to the hospital and $1,446 to the surgeon. This reimbursement disparity is certainly not limited to California, and is representative of a broader trend on a national level.
...
Moreover, doctors' net take-home pay amounts to only about 10 percent of overall healthcare spending. Which if cut by 10 percent would save about $24 billion – a considerably modest savings when compared to the $360 billion spent annually for administrative costs as estimated by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), and the fact that 85 percent of excess administrative overhead can be attributed to the insurance system.

[Admiral Yi]

How in the world would you go about calculating how much a surgeon got paid for a certain operation?  Don't doctors generally get paid annual salary rather than piece rate?

[LaCroix]

How in the world would you go about calculating how much a surgeon got paid for a certain operation?

went down the rabbit hole until i found this:
http://www.ethicon.com/sites/default/files/EES_Reimb_2012_Hip.pdf

[Admiral Yi]

Take it back down the rabbit hole.  It doesn't answer my question.

[LaCroix]

Take it back down the rabbit hole.  It doesn't answer my question.

technically it did 

[Malthus]

In the old days, in Canada, you paid a surgeon by the amount of time an operation took. This fact indirectly saved my grandfather's life.

He contracted pneumonia during the great influenza epidemic, which was just about a guaranteed death sentence. The only thing that could save his life was an operation to re-inflale his lungs. Thing was, he was so poor (and cheap), that he insisted that the operation be performed under a local anesthetic rather than being put under - so he could watch the clock and make sure he was only charged for time actually spent operating.

He survived. It turned out that almost everyone who had this operation before him died. The reason was: the general anesthetic they used, combined with the operation, was killing them. Doctors switched to only using locals, and more patients survived.

[MadImmortalMan]

Then don't complain about the cost of healthcare. Over a century ago doctors came to your house like the pizza guy does and cost about as much. Now, it's swung completely the other way. I think maybe something in the middle would do us some good.

medical school isn't the reason for added costs of healthcare. costs have risen exponentially since.. what, 1970s or so? the requirement to attend medical school was in place quite a long time before that

over a century ago doctors did not have the technology, institutions or forms of treatments anywhere close to what they have today. your argument seems like it's more suggesting that we should essentially do away with medicine if we want to cut costs

The lack of medical schools is the reason. We've had a steadily increasing doctor shortage for a hundred years. That and the bar to get certified is too high.

[crazy canuck]

Then don't complain about the cost of healthcare. Over a century ago doctors came to your house like the pizza guy does and cost about as much. Now, it's swung completely the other way. I think maybe something in the middle would do us some good.

medical school isn't the reason for added costs of healthcare. costs have risen exponentially since.. what, 1970s or so? the requirement to attend medical school was in place quite a long time before that

over a century ago doctors did not have the technology, institutions or forms of treatments anywhere close to what they have today. your argument seems like it's more suggesting that we should essentially do away with medicine if we want to cut costs

The lack of medical schools is the reason. We've had a steadily increasing doctor shortage for a hundred years. That and the bar to get certified is too high.

Jurisdictions with single payor systems are also experiencing increasing health care costs.  In those jurisdictions doctor shortages dont increase costs it increases wait times.  There are other factors at play here.

[MadImmortalMan]

Jurisdictions with single payor systems are also experiencing increasing health care costs.  In those jurisdictions doctor shortages dont increase costs it increases wait times.  There are other factors at play here.

Lots of those places have state payed education, or at least more subsidized than ours. Our docs are several hundred grand in debt before they can see their first patient. I'm sure that's a big factor too.

[DGuller]

Medicine teaches you to be inhuman.  After you carve up enough cadavers, people stop being human to you anymore.  They're just machines you have license to take apart.

Anybody with an anatomy textbook and a scalpel can get to that point.  I thought half the point of the classes was to prevent that from happening.

DSB is a pathologist now?

[The Brain]

Jurisdictions with single payor systems are also experiencing increasing health care costs.  In those jurisdictions doctor shortages dont increase costs it increases wait times.  There are other factors at play here.

Lots of those places have state payed education, or at least more subsidized than ours. Our docs are several hundred grand in debt before they can see their first patient. I'm sure that's a big factor too.

Elaborate.