The American Health Paradox

[Brutha]

An article from the blogger Seth Roberts who isn't in what's traditionally called alternative medicine or for that matter what's traditionally card medicine:
Seth’s blog » Blog Archive » The American Health Paradox: What Causes It? (continued)

[ginkgo]

It is not a paradox just a difference of purpose. The purpose of a doctor is to make money, period. Being a doctor is a job like sniffing armpits (deodorant testing). The purpose is to sniff armpits but they do not care how the armpits smell. They do the job just to get paid. As soon as you give them $10 million, they will quit.

So why should the doctor care about his ideas. He just wants to do his job and get paid. His ideas do not make that any easier for him. Give him $100 million and he will quit his job and do something that he wants to do like play golf. A job is something that someone does since he needs the money. So unlike doctors, Steve Pavlina does not need a job. That is why he does not have one. If he needed to, he could go to medical school and become a doctor. What do you call someone who graduates last in their class in medical school? Doctor! Where do people get this idea that the doctor cares about your health? Just pay the poor guy and leave him alone to do his job so he can get done for the day and go home.

Then approach him with a tip on how to play golf better and he will listen to you. “Money makes the world go round.” Many people do not believe in God, but they believe in money. Money did not exist for 3 million years and then they locked up the food and created the need for money.

[Daffy Duck]

Originally Posted by ginkgo

The purpose of a doctor is to make money, period.

That's not true. Many doctors would disagree and some doctors even give their services away for free.

That's like saying Steve's purpose as an author is to make money, period.

[ginkgo]

Originally Posted by Daffy Duck

That's not true. Many doctors would disagree and some doctors even give their services away for free.

That's like saying Steve's purpose as an author is to make money, period.

My rule is that all rules have exceptions, except some. So they are the exceptions. Sometimes a prostitute will have sex for free. But don't count on it. If a doctor is financially independent, then he does not need to worry about money.

In that post about immunizations, I put up a quote by Andrew Weil, M.D. (Harvard Medical School). I bought one of his 'candy' bars (fruit and nut bar) today. After taxes all the money goes to the Weil Foundation Weil Foundation - Home. "In 2006 and 2007, the Weil Foundation gave $900,000 in grants and gifts to medical centers and other non-profic organizations nationwide. We intend to give away $1 million in 2008." After reading what he wrote on immunizations, don't expect him to give money to research that.

[Dreamline]

I'm in trad medicine and I can honestly tell you, there are exponentially easier ways to make 10 million dollars. Not that that figure is realistic anyway. Doctors don't do this to make money. There is nowhere near as much money in the field as there used to be 40 years ago. They are not in this field for prestige. The field is just not a prestigious as it was 30 years ago.

It's dedication, endless shifts, seemingly endless education, immense students loans to pay off when you finally get your first real job, constant uprgading of skills, malpractice premiums that cost more than your house, patients who don't take your advice, hours of sleeplessness, never having really any time to yourself, constant battles with stingy insurance providers whose sole purpose is to try and keep the pittance of your charges they decide you deserve....

If your job was that harsh, I'd imagine your motivation would be more than money.

Jennifer

[st33med]

Funny. Doctors tell their patients how to stay healthy, yet, people rarely follow advice. Eat better food. Lay off the junk. Get some greens in that belly. But, what do people do to lose weight? They go to a diet program. Now, I have nothing against how diet programs work, but, people could easily just get rid of what is not healthy in their fridge and fill it with healthy foods. That way, you're limited to whats in the fridge or cupboard.

[ginkgo]

Originally Posted by Dreamline

I'm in trad medicine and I can honestly tell you, there are exponentially easier ways to make 10 million dollars. Not that that figure is realistic anyway. Doctors don't do this to make money. There is nowhere near as much money in the field as there used to be 40 years ago. They are not in this field for prestige. The field is just not a prestigious as it was 30 years ago.

It's dedication, endless shifts, seemingly endless education, immense students loans to pay off when you finally get your first real job, constant uprgading of skills, malpractice premiums that cost more than your house, patients who don't take your advice, hours of sleeplessness, never having really any time to yourself, constant battles with stingy insurance providers whose sole purpose is to try and keep the pittance of your charges they decide you deserve....

If your job was that harsh, I'd imagine your motivation would be more than money.

Jennifer

So what you are saying is that money has to be a lot more important to a doctor than say a street bum. Note that I said $10 million for a armpit smeller, but $100 million for a doctor. Doctors and lawyers still have the highest paying jobs in the country. I used to drive a cab in Philadelphia with great hospitals like UPenn, Jefferson, Hahneman and PA hospital-- the first hospital in the country. They used to make med students work over 100 hours a week, then they created a law to prevent that. Before that law, med students made less than minimum wage. One woman who was a new doctor (in my cab) was regretting becoming one. I felt bad for her.

But what you are talking about is a rule of life. Suffer now to get more success later. A new nurse has a much easier and nicer life than a new doctor. But later on the doctor will be making much more than the nurse. Two Asians came to the U.S. They got a job at a convenience store. Instead of having a nice life in an apartment, they lived in the back room for free. Two years later, they bought their own store.

Here is what I did notice in Philadelphia. I am talking to someone in my cab and I notice that the person that I am talking to is extremely smart. So I ask if they are a doctor or med student and they usually are. Someone can be the best writer but not find anyone that wants to publish their book. But if you have M.D. after your name, it is easy to get someone to publish your book. It is still the most prestigiuos title to have after your name. What would be the dollar value to be from England and have Sir before your name like Sir Paul McCartney or Sir Elton John? You have to get knighted for that title. A gay knight?

What MD ran for president in the last election? Note that the immunization article was on his site.

[funchy]

While I agree the modern health care system is a bit broken, I don't think we should demonize those in the health care field. Doctors are working within the limitations of a system that we are ALL responsible for.

If we pay high rates, remember that a significant portion of that goes to hire all the workers it takes to process your health insurance company's paperwork or to do collections. (In some practices 40% of expenses are these extra costs). I'm not seeing patients asking to go back to a cash-only system. I don't even see patients asking their doctor how much visits or procedures cost. Nobody is forcing you to get extra diagnostic tests, and it's your job to decide if their cost is worth it.

If a doctor wanted to work for free, how will they pay for their massive malpractice insurance premiums? Our society loves to sue and there seems to be no upper limit on how much the plaintiffs can win. There is talk of tort reform, but the average person doesn't care. Some people love that they can "win" millions if their doctor makes a mistake. Even if the doctor wasn't wrong, it costs so much to go to trial that you can count on getting a nice out-of-court cash settlement just to drop the issue. Some doctors will steer patients away from risky procedures because they have no choice.
The Malpractice Insurance Crisis: The Impact on Healthcare Cost and Access

Your insurance company may also be pressuring the doctor to change how he treats you. Medicare for example has made arbitrary caps on payments, no matter how high the overhead is for the office or hospital. Some treatments or diagnostics, even though not experimental, are hard to get an insurance company to pay for. The HMO programs may not authorize some referrals. What ends up happening is the insurance companies have some control over your diagnosis and treatment, and the doctor doesn't have much choice if he wants to keep taking insurance.

If not many health processionals give services away for free, remember the massive cost of medical school, which rises annually far more than inflation. Imagining being in your late 20s, finally graduating, and having no job but payments due on a $100,000 loan? I don't see much initiative by the public to create more scholarships for doctors.

The same can be said for the treatments and drugs doctors can offer: there is so little public funding for research, so the vast majority come from for-profit companies who need to keep earning money. It's not an evil conspiracy. It's simply a capitalist market with almost no public funding being put into health research. Don't like it? Elect people who will put health & science as priorities. We can spend over $700 billion on a war in Iraq, and that's not including all the military & police actions. But we don't have the money to increase funding for badly-needed medical research?

Not all doctors make millions of dollars, living the posh life of Beverly Hills plastic surgeons. Health professionals work hard behind the scenes of VA hospitals, public health clinics, outreach programs, low-funded public hospitals, and poverty-stricken rural areas.

There are doctors who work for free. I believe more would do so if they weren't saddled with so much debt and overhead. Check out Doctors Without Borders. Check out the programs almost all states have where states pay a little towards the doctor's student loans and the doctor works for (almost no) lower pay in an inner-city or poor Appalachian hospital.

I am frustrated because generally speaking Americans take NO responsibility for their health. 30% of Americans are considered overweight to obese. 90%+ of them eat meat, and an American's idea of a serving of meat is a 16oz t-bone. 1 in 5 American kids born today are predicted to develop type 2 Diabetes. Heart disease, stroke, and cancer will kill off most of us, even know we know diet & exercise plays a big part in risk factor. Cigarette smoking is bad and commercial cigarettes are full of additives & chemicals, but 20% of Americans still smoke. America wants to live off nicotine, caffeine, burgers, and sugar but it's someone else's fault when we feel ill.


Right now I am back in college on a medical track. I have the grades and test scores to probably get into a med school, and I am the kind of person who'd work for free & get to know the patients. However, I just don't have access to $30,000 - $50,000+ per year in tuition plus cost of living in another city. The best solution I've found is get my RN (class of 2011) and see if I can afford the $25,000/year "cheap" grad school to become a Physicians Assistant. There are NO scholarships for me, even know my GPA is currently about 3.9. My household isn't on welfare so we "make too much". Most of the foundation scholarships dried up with this recession. Because of the rigors of working clinicals, unlike going to school for my other degree, there's no way I can work full-time to pay for tuition. Working part-time may even be a challenge. So do I want to go out into the world and help people, asking them to pay only what they can afford? yes! Can I do that without losing my home & car? Probably not.


Thanks for hearing me out. I'll get off my soapbox now.

[liamona]

Another great article by Seth! I especially liked:

"One big advance in patients taking charge was home blood glucose testing. It came from an engineer named Richard Bernstein [Dr. Bernstein also advocates low-carb diets for diabetics]. Best thing for diabetics since the discovery of insulin. Doctors opposed it. When I invented the Shangri-La Diet, and lost 30 pounds, my doctor didn’t ask how I lost all that weight. Not one question. Like all doctors, he had many fat patients; the notion that I, a mere patient, could know something that would help his other patients didn’t cross his mind."

I admire the fact that he's willing to experiment on himself to find solutions to problems. He sure thinks outside the box, diet-wise. It's a mystery why his book, The Shangri-La Diet isn't more well-known, since the diet works so well.

[Dreamline]

ginkgo, your point is still incorrect. We as a capitalistic society decide what any profession is worth, not the person in that profession. Just like NFL players getting ridiculous salaries, we complain but we still buy the tickets, the merchandise and the products advertised during the games that support those ridiculous salaries. I happen to think MDs get paid adequately for the lifelong sacrifices they make.

You are showing a limiting belief that doctors are just in it for the money and I am saying that if that were even remotely true, there are MUCH easier and less convoluted ways to make money, if money is all you want. So, logically, there must be more to the story.

I believe it is the desire to make a difference in the world. Which would be the direct opposite of pure greed.

Jennifer

[alainplus]

The best solution I've found is get my RN (class of 2011) and see if I can afford the $25,000/year "cheap" grad school to become a Physicians Assistant. There are NO scholarships for me, even know my GPA is currently about 3.9. My household isn't on welfare so we "make too much". Most of the foundation scholarships dried up with this recession. Because of the rigors of working clinicals, unlike going to school for my other degree, there's no way I can work full-time to pay for tuition. Working part-time may even be a challenge.

Small world! Same major! Same GPA! Same year! No scholarships! Same goals(PA)!

It seems best to make as much money as you can then go help people aka being poor for a lengthy amount of time while saving up and building up your skills set. It's really no different from being a doctor.

[Timothy Smith]

My dad said this to me.

"People become nurses just for money. If they don't care about money, why do this hard job?"

[Dreamline]

Because they care. Because medicine was a natural aptitude for them. Because they are interested in the technological advances. Maybe they like making a difference in life, not just making a buck.

I'd wonder less about why and be more grateful. If you ever need to be in the hospital, someone will always be there to wipe your ass.

Jennifer