Are Physicians Being Squeezed?

[Gut Shot]

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Howso?

Oh Jesus, don't get him started.

Some while back I realized that when the people I disagree with are unhappy, that's a good thing for me.

 

[usermike8500]

I'm just not sure it's wise to take on $300k+ in debt and sacrifice 10 years of my life

$300K+ in debt? Ouch! Are your scrubs designed by Christian Dior? Stethoscopes made out of gold? According to AMA, the average med school debt is around $140K.

Secondly, you'll sacrifice 10 years or more out of your life making a name for yourself in any other profession. There's less of a rat race in medicine and you don't need to fawn over or kiss up to superiors as much as you do in business, law, finance, or most other fields. 🙂

 

[chessknt]

Flip thru the MSAR. Pretty much every school in there for "Estimated Cost of Attendance" ranges from $40000-$65000 depending on residency status and school. Even at $40000 per year, that's still $160000 total...so I dunno who else is paying for their schooling. I also have undergrad loans that will add to my medical school loans.

Some cost estmiates:
$500 Car/Insurance (x12)
$750 Rent/Utilites (x12)
$800 Food (x12) (figuring ~$200 per week)
$50 Cell phone (x12)
$2000 Health Insurance
$35000 OOS tuition (give or take)
=$62200 per year (x4)
==>$248800 (total for med school) plus the ~$80000 I'll have from undergrad is $328880 for my education, maybe a little less if I go somewhere with ~$25k in tuition. But still easily over 1/4 million.

And then there's books, gas, misc. expenses, etc. which I left out of my calculations. If I never leave my house, never go out to eat, eat ramen, and hope I don't need to buy any new clothes in 4 years, hope my car doesn't need fixing/maintenance, then yea...I could probably shave a few thousand off that estimate. Assuming none of those things happen (hint: they do.)

Why the hell is your car insurance so high? You need to fix that as you are paying 5k/yr in insurance--just go buy a ghetto car instead! You also inflated yoru food costs, cooking at home wont cost more than 100-150/wk--dont eat out.

 

[flip26]

$300K+ in debt? Ouch! Are your scrubs designed by Christian Dior? Stethoscopes made out of gold? According to AMA, the average med school debt is around $140K.

Secondly, you'll sacrifice 10 years or more out of your life making a name for yourself in any other profession. There's less of a rat race in medicine and you don't need to fawn over or kiss up to superiors as much as you do in business, law, finance, or most other fields. 🙂

That is an average for all schools including rich folks who pay cash and cheaper instate schools like Texas...in other words, it doesn't mean anything to you unless it so happens your debt ends up around the average.

 

[chessknt]

My parents make too much to qualify me for more than a few thousand a year but not enough to actually help pay for my education. I'm stuck in the middle class limbo...too "wealthy" for benefits, but too poor to pay for college.



Cooking saves some, but not too terribly much. You'll still be spend $20-30 per day depending on what you're making. If you eat alot of starches and vegetables, yea...it's cheap. But if you eat a lot of meats/proteins it can add up pretty quick.

I eat a protein (chicken or turkey, sometimes flank steaks) every night--I only spend ~80-100/wk on food. A 2 flank steak package costs $3.50, thats 2 dinners worth of steak. Chicken packs are 1.99/lb boneless skinless breasts when they are on sale, so that amounts to <$2 per protein per dinner. I actually find my berries to be the most expensive items I buy.

 

[45408]

You sure spend a lot of time on this forum talking about how little doctors earn and how the 'real money' is in other fields. No reason to feel guilty for switching careers to make more money.

lol @ you trying to talk down to L2D.

 

[45408]

I eat a protein (chicken or turkey, sometimes flank steaks) every night--I only spend ~80-100/wk on food. A 2 flank steak package costs $3.50, thats 2 dinners worth of steak. Chicken packs are 1.99/lb boneless skinless breasts when they are on sale, so that amounts to <$2 per protein per dinner. I actually find my berries to be the most expensive items I buy.

You're nickel and diming us to death here now. A few thousand here and there don't make the difference between $250K and $125K. The point is that the $140K figure includes a lot of people with very different scenarios. I will owe a bit over $140,000, and that doesn't include anything but tuition. My wife pays my rent, utilities, food, clothes, entertainment, vacation, etc. A lot of my classmates don't have that, so they take out much more in loans than I do. And then some of my classmates have rich parents paying for everything, and others are going the military route. There are definitely people graduating from my school with >$200,000 in debt, and very possibly a significant amount of undergrad loans and credit card debt on top of that.

 

[GeraldMonroe]

I owe $25k from undergrad from going to Texas state schools.

I'll go to a state school where the tution + fees are 13k/year. Yet, if I spend the full amount of loans (and I plan to), I will owe over 160k on graduation day including both principle and interest. With my undergrad loans, it'll be at least $190k. Probably 200k with fees and expenses I haven't factored in yet, such as a residency relocation loan.

And I'm doing almost the cheapest deal available. I don't know of many schools, state or private, that charge their students under 13k of tuition/year.

All this debt will be at an interest rate of at least 6.8%, versus the much lower interest rates that graduates had to pay 5 years ago.

 

[flip26]

holy crap. $500 is more than I pay a year. If you have accidents or things like that driving up your insurance it might be a lot cheaper to sell your car...Tucson is a pretty bike friendly city isn't it?

AZ has some of the highest insurance rates in the country due to theft - lots of vehicles stolen and taken into Mexico...

 

[circulus vitios]

Flip thru the MSAR. Pretty much every school in there for "Estimated Cost of Attendance" ranges from $40000-$65000 depending on residency status and school. Even at $40000 per year, that's still $160000 total...so I dunno who else is paying for their schooling. I also have undergrad loans that will add to my medical school loans.

Some cost estmiates:
$500 Car/Insurance (x12)
$750 Rent/Utilites (x12)
$800 Food (x12) (figuring ~$200 per week)
$50 Cell phone (x12)
$2000 Health Insurance
$35000 OOS tuition (give or take)
=$62200 per year (x4)
==>$248800 (total for med school) plus the ~$80000 I'll have from undergrad is $328880 for my education, maybe a little less if I go somewhere with ~$25k in tuition. But still easily over 1/4 million.

And then there's books, gas, misc. expenses, etc. which I left out of my calculations. If I never leave my house, never go out to eat, eat ramen, and hope I don't need to buy any new clothes in 4 years, hope my car doesn't need fixing/maintenance, then yea...I could probably shave a few thousand off that estimate. Assuming none of those things happen (hint: they do.)

Medical school is expensive but god damn. You're a student, not a king.

$500/month for a car? Buy a $3,000 beater with the cheapest insurance you can get. I pay a little over $60 a month for my car insurance.

$200 a week in food? I grew up on $100 a week with 4 people in the house.

$50 a month on a cell phone? I pay $30 a month for mine. Or you could just go back to a land line.

Right there you just went from $16.2k/year to a little under $6k.

 

[Gut Shot]

I pay $38 😛
Starting to wonder if the $500/month for insurance was a typo--6K a year for insurance??? You could buy a (beat up) car for that. Or go on a long vacation..

Jesus, people, that's $500/month for car note + insurance.

 

[45408]

Medical school is expensive but god damn. You're a student, not a king.

$500/month for a car? Buy a $3,000 beater with the cheapest insurance you can get. I pay a little over $60 a month for my car insurance.

$200 a week in food? I grew up on $100 a week with 4 people in the house.

$50 a month on a cell phone? I pay $30 a month for mine. Or you could just go back to a land line.

Right there you just went from $16.2k/year to a little under $6k.

Again, it's pretty obvious that you guys are missing the point. Yes, you CAN live on an extremely small budget, but it WILL get old after you've been doing it for quite a few years. Spending $50 a month on your cell phone is a king? Have you priced out cell phone plans lately? The most basic plan I could find on Verizon's site was $40 a month, and that was for 15 minutes of talk time per day.

good point..I just read chessknt87's post...$500 Car/Insurance probably means the monthly payment is included (I thought he misplaced a decimal 😛

still $6k a year is crazy in a town that's warm enough to bike in year round. Maybe there's something we aren't aware of that requires a car

When it's 5am, and you have to ride your bike 10 miles across town to get to your surgery rotation (that you didn't get out of until 9pm last night, at which time you had to ride your bike 10 miles home), you'll sing a different tune.

 

[chessknt]

This is true, but I would look into a motorcycle or something inexpensive that you can still use during rotations. No school is going to factor 6k a year for transportation costs which could really squeeze his budget.

 

[Riboflavin]

Oh Jesus, don't get him started.

Some while back I realized that when the people I disagree with are unhappy, that's a good thing for me.

Or when people agree you both made your points and you are BOTH right. Translates into: "Wow, I was wrong! I'll just say we're both right so I don't have to admit you are completely right!"

 

[chessknt]

in cold climates maybe. I've biked almost that much to work or school in warmer cities and it actually helped me wake up.
cell phone prices are highly dependent on where you live, I've compared the exact same plan with a friend who lives 1,500 miles away and she pays less. So it goes

When you are operating on no sleep and heading into another long shift, depleting your energy reserves by biking 10 miles is not going to be good for you.

 

[Forthegood]

He's not smart, he's educated. Big difference. Smart people do smart things which, vis-a-vis the economy, foreign policy and anything else you care to name, he is not, repeat not, doing. So if you voted for him because he's "smart," well, shame on you. Every president since I can remember has been college educated, usually in the Ivy League. President Bush had an MBA. President Obama has a Law Degree. Big Deal.

Now I am laughing. Yeah, any old idiot off the street gets into Harvard law, then graduates top of their class. Just like any idiot gets into Hopkins Med, and gets top of their class. An MBA is your retort? Really? You ARE kidding, right? Saying education doesn't mean intelligent is one thing, but why do you assume that is the ONLY reason I think he is smart. That seems... well, dumb.

You may dislike the guy. Frankly, I don't care what you think. But if you are going to go hunting, you should bring better ammunition.

 

[Gut Shot]

Or when people agree you both made your points and you are BOTH right. Translates into: "Wow, I was wrong! I'll just say we're both right so I don't have to admit you are completely right!"

I award you zero points, and may God have mercy on your soul.

 

[atomi]

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[atomi]

-

 

[flip26]

wow that is a crazy high rate. I thought minimum liability just covered accidents though. Wouldn't you have to pay more to cover theft?

AZ insurance premiums are also higher than the national avg because it is one of the top states for insurance fraud - gangs of thieves perpetrating those intentional "fender bender" accidents on streets and roads. NJ is notorious for this, too.

Even though AZ, like many states, has mandatory insurance, IIRC something like 40 to 50 percent of drivers are uninsured there. Thus that drives the premiums even higher for people who obey the law...

PS - I used to live in AZ, hence my knowledge of the insurance situation...

 

[officedepot]

"An article in the Feb. 12 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine said the percentage of specialists in independent practice has declined 18.6 percent since the mid 1990s. Primary care doctors have also been migrating to larger groups or jobs as employees of hospital systems or HMOs.These trends are being driven by financial concerns as well as demographic factors. Older doctors want more security and fewer hassles. The growing number of female doctors, meanwhile, want work schedules compatible with family life. There has been little consideration of how these changes will affect access or quality of care"


"
The tiny physician payment increases would be offset by 11% cuts in 2010 and 2011. Specialty societies report that the various cost-control schemes will pit physicians against each other—for example, it sets up an advisory panel to re-do Relative Value Units (RVUs) for “over-valued” services."

It seems like society lives on the stereotype that physicians are "rich." The reality is that while physicians do make good salaries, the median salary is about 160K a year according to payscale's well respected salary survey. Consider the 4 years of med school, 100K student loans, residency hell, 60 hour work weeks, stress, years of foregone earning time, malpractice, HMOs, etc. and the salary is not really that unfair....... Sure a few doctors make a lot, but that's a small minority. Realistically 80% of docs are making in the range of 120-190K a year, which is a lot less than a lot of corporate and Wall Street dudes make. There was a time when you had docs making 200/300K+ a year, but those times are gone. If the government goes ahead with the Medicare reimbursement cuts it plans, physician median pay could drop quite significantly.

If this keeps up, at some point people are going to be deterred away from medicine. Anybody else think this is unfair?

solution = no more female doctors (JUST JOKING!!!)


but seriously, now there are PAs and more nurses (nursing schools are packed). If a physician worked alone it would be a problem but they usually don't. That article is using stats to make it seem like one physician has too much to handle. In reality that shouldn't be too much of an issue based merely on the type on person who becomes a physician (a very hard and dedicated worker). Now if medical schools are letting in less motivated people then it becomes a big concern.

 

[Riboflavin]

I award you zero points, and may God have mercy on your soul.

Okay, a simple "wrong" would've done just fine.

 

[lala5656]

??? Law2Doc used to be a lawyer... he had a higher earning potential in that profession than he will in medicine. Not sure I follow what you're implying.



I don't. I'm actually not even sure I want to put myself through this anymore. I've wanted to be a doctor for as long as I can remember but when push comes to shove, I can't seem to articulate a legitimate reason why. I'd imagine I'd still enjoy it, I've liked what I've seen so far...I'm just not sure it's wise to take on $300k+ in debt and sacrifice 10 years of my life for something I'm not in love with. Every doctor I've talked to says "don't do it, and if you absolutely must, make sure you REALLY love it" and quite frankly, I'm not sure that's me anymore.

I'm going into senior year almost done with a BS in Physiology (aka I'll be working at Burger King). I'm debating switching to accounting or economics (investing has become very interesting to me lately) and it'd only take me an extra semester to complete the accounting degree. With a heavy load, I could probably finish both degrees in 4.5 years.

Sorry for the life story, it was off topic.

Don't go to medical school yet. Work for a few years and save up enough money to pay four your cost of living expenses and then go to medical school. People around the whole country are doing this as we speak. Medical school is REALLY expensive and it is smart to work for a few years to get some money into that checking account to help with the medical school expenses.

 

[45408]

This is true, but I would look into a motorcycle or something inexpensive that you can still use during rotations. No school is going to factor 6k a year for transportation costs which could really squeeze his budget.

So what will you do when it rains as you're headed to the hospital? There aren't many cities in the US that would really allow a med student to get away with not owning a car, IMO.

in cold climates maybe. I've biked almost that much to work or school in warmer cities and it actually helped me wake up.
cell phone prices are highly dependent on where you live, I've compared the exact same plan with a friend who lives 1,500 miles away and she pays less. So it goes

And when you show up to rounds with pit stains?

It should be telling to some of you guys that it's never med students or residents arguing your perspective.

 

[45408]

Don't go to medical school yet. Work for a few years and save up enough money to pay four your cost of living expenses and then go to medical school. People around the whole country are doing this as we speak. Medical school is REALLY expensive and it is smart to work for a few years to get some money into that checking account to help with the medical school expenses.

Not really. You could work for 4 more years before med school, making $50,000 a year and saving maybe $15,000 a year for future expenses, or you could work one more year after residency, making $150,000 a year and paying down the loans with $50,000 a year. Your call, but one of them will save you 3 years.

 

[GeraldMonroe]

Not really. You could work for 4 more years before med school, making $50,000 a year and saving maybe $15,000 a year for future expenses, or you could work one more year after residency, making $150,000 a year and paying down the loans with $50,000 a year. Your call, but one of them will save you 3 years.

Someone passed economics class. 👍👍

 

[notoriousmoops]

LOL at the stereotypes. This is America, a nation that operates almost entirely on consumer credit. I know plenty of people that have a mercedes, play golf, and live in big houses, and they don't make nearly as much money as doctors. I have numerous friends who bought $60k cars after getting their first job out of college that certainly wasn't high-paying. If that's your goal in life, it's not hard to obtain, and you certainly don't need a 6 figure salary to do it. I bought an expensive car out of college too. I got rid of it almost immediately. Unless you are very shallow, you learn quickly that these kind of material things don't add anything worthwhile to satisfaction with life.

I think it's just funny that people think of a car and house as the endgame, when those things are material and so easy to achieve.

Amen. People without significant wealth are obsessed with trying to appear wealthier than they are and those who come from old money strive to be modest with their wealth. This is detailed in Thomas J Stanley's The Millionaire Next Door. (http://www.amazon.com/Millionaire-Next-Door-Thomas-Stanley/dp/0671015206)

 

[melanoleuca]

Now I am laughing. Yeah, any old idiot off the street gets into Harvard law, then graduates top of their class. Just like any idiot gets into Hopkins Med, and gets top of their class. An MBA is your retort? Really? You ARE kidding, right? Saying education doesn't mean intelligent is one thing, but why do you assume that is the ONLY reason I think he is smart. That seems... well, dumb.

You may dislike the guy. Frankly, I don't care what you think. But if you are going to go hunting, you should bring better ammunition.

Whoa. You are way to respectful of higher education. Many people in government have expensive educations from elite universities but would you say that government has done anything really intelligent in the last 30 years? The last smart President was Ronald Reagan who was a complex individual, a brilliant writer (if you have read his memoirs), and a guy who thought deeply about the role of government and yet stuck to a few big ideas and had the good sense to not try to micromanage everything which has been the trend since his presidency and is in full flower with Mr. Obama.

And any old idiot can get into Harvard Law, Harvard, Johns Hopkins and any old school you care to mention because they certainly turn out their fair share of any old idiots, that is, people who may be hyper-educated but lack the, I don't now, let's call it a filter to discriminate good from bad and reasonable from unreasonable; higher education in the liberal arts being today mostly indoctrination and not education. I know, for example, political science PhDs who purport to be experts in American Government but have never read The Federalist Papers or any of our founding documents, the education they received having been filtered and sanitized through the ideological lenses of the Inner Party.

In the case of Mr. Obama, we really have no idea if he is smart or not because his educational records have been embargoed. Did he fail a bunch of classes? Were his SATs low? His LSATs? Did he get in by affirmative action? Did he take mostly fluffy classes as an undergrad? We don't know because President Obama will not release his transcripts. Why not?

President Bush's SAT score was 1205, by the way, not as high as most of ours but respectable (94th percentile?) and his grades were higher than both Senator Kerry's and Vice President Gore's; Mr. Gore was kicked out of graduate school for bad grades, I believe.

Live by the sword, die by the sword. If you are going to hold academic credientials as the standard for intelligence than Mr. Bush with a Harvard MBA, no small accomplishment, is at least smarter than Mr. Gore and Mr. Kerry, The Smartest Men in The World, and if his scores and grades are higher than President Obama's...then there you go.

I'm smarter than most of you, every President since Ronald Reagan, and I went to no-prestige state university where I had a B average in everything.

By the way, Mr. Obama majored in political science at Columbia, graduated without honors, so he must have had a GPA lower than 3.3. 3.3 is not bad, mind you, but in Political Science? Har. You think that's a rigorous degree?

 

[GeraldMonroe]

An SAT score of 1205 is above the 78th percentile.

From manner of speech, and the fact that Obama is able to make intelligent responses without a teleprompter, means that the man is pretty smart, smarter than the last few presidents except for maybe slick Willie. I wish you could at least confine your arguments to things that are true, instead of obvious falsehoods.

I think that Obama may be about to make one of the biggest blunders in Federal government history by spending several trillion dollars we don't have. However, I'm not so biased that I think the man is an idiot : he thinks he knows what he is doing. The most accepted version of history by academics and the most accepted economic theory (by academics) is that spending money, even borrowed federal money, can alleviate a depression. We will find out if this theory is correct or not soon enough.

 

[flip26]

An SAT score of 1205 is above the 78th percentile.

From manner of speech, and the fact that Obama is able to make intelligent responses without a teleprompter, means that the man is pretty smart, smarter than the last few presidents except for maybe slick Willie. I wish you could at least confine your arguments to things that are true, instead of obvious falsehoods.

I think that Obama may be about to make one of the biggest blunders in Federal government history by spending several trillion dollars we don't have. However, I'm not so biased that I think the man is an idiot : he thinks he knows what he is doing. The most accepted version of history by academics and the most accepted economic theory (by academics) is that spending money, even borrowed federal money, can alleviate a depression. We will find out if this theory is correct or not soon enough.

Fact? Obama uses a teleprompter at news conferences where off stage staff feeds info to him to answer questions...he is the first president to ever rely on such a crutch.

 

[GeraldMonroe]

Fact? Obama uses a teleprompter at news conferences where off stage staff feeds info to him to answer questions...he is the first president to ever rely on such a crutch.

Yes, it's a fact. http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-by-the-President-at-Open-for-Questions-Town-Hall/


He did not use a teleprompter for this meeting. I read everything the man said, and I have to conclude that the man does know what he is talking about. Nearly all of his ideas are well accepted, at least by the authors of textbooks and academics in general.


I'm not saying the man's policies are the best idea, but he is an educated man who speaks clearly, eloquently, and seems to understand at least the basics of social sciences.

As a future physician, you probably won't benefit from Obama's policies. He's spending more money, which means that taxes will have to be raised eventually to pay for it. Furthermore, he's racking up debt, which means that physicians and all higher income earners will have to pay even more taxes to make the interest payments on the debt. Both those things are bad, and I don't like them.

So many physicans and future physicians have a vested interest in hating Obama's administration. But try to at least see the overall reality, not just your own needs and biases.

A lot of people keep jumping on the man because they perceive his qualifications as being inadequate. Or, they'll criticize him for not working in a particular industry, such as the auto industry. Or they'll criticize him because democratic congressmen inserted a few billion in pork into the spending bill. None of those have anything to do with Obama. The man wouldn't be young if he'd done everything under the sun in terms of 'becoming more qualified' He doesn't control what the rest of the democratic party does. So it irritates me that the conservative 'backlash' seems to focus on irrelevant things and nothing of any importance.

 

[melanoleuca]

...I'm not saying the man's policies are the best idea, but he is an educated man who speaks clearly, eloquently, and seems to understand at least the basics of social sciences...

Sweet Mother of Abraham Lincoln! So what yer' saying is that, although his policies are idiotic and will destroy the productive sector of the economy upon whose shoulders is supported the whole sloppy mammary state, he sounds really eloquent, I am in love with his manly, professorial ways, and therefore my love transcends reason and I'm going to support the guy.

Why not just throw him your panties or send him a love letter?

Smart people do smart things based on a smart assessment of the world as it is and not of the world how they'd like it.

I weep for your generation.

 

[flip26]

Yes, it's a fact. http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-by-the-President-at-Open-for-Questions-Town-Hall/

Wrong. Obama uses a teleprompter at news conferences (lots of other venues, too).

Get your "facts" straight: http://military.rightpundits.com/2009/03/06/obama-teleprompter/

 

[melanoleuca]

...As a future physician, you probably won't benefit from Obama's policies. He's spending more money, which means that taxes will have to be raised eventually to pay for it. Furthermore, he's racking up debt, which means that physicians and all higher income earners will have to pay even more taxes to make the interest payments on the debt. Both those things are bad, and I don't like them....

Oh my Lord. But yer' still gonna' cheer full stop and swoon over his manly intelligence. Don't you get that destroying the wealth of the productive sector as well as making hyperinflation inevitable will not just hurt high wage earners but everyone who depends on them for jobs? How much productivity do you think there's going to be if the top marginal rates are increased to a point where seeing more patients is not worth it to a physician who may as well go fishing than work his but off for five bucks out of a hundred if the marginal rates are increased to almost 100 percent as they would have to be to pay off all of our new debt?

In other words, suppose the top marginal tax rate is 90 percent for everything over $200,000. This means that every dollar you make over $200,000, you will only see 10 cents. If you work a shift and make $1000, $900 will go to taxes. At what marginal rate will you stop working? What always happens is that tax revenues will go down because people will not work past the point where there is no incentive to work, it being better to lower marginal rates to give people incentive to work more and increase revenue to the treasury.

Like I said, I weep for you guys.

 

[chessknt]

Or they'll criticize him because democratic congressmen inserted a few billion in pork into the spending bill. None of those have anything to do with Obama.

Wait doesnt the president have to sign the bill to make it a law? So how would condoning this pointless spending via giving his signature have nothing to do with him?

 

[melanoleuca]

Wait doesnt the president have to sign the bill to make it a law? So how would condoning this pointless spending via giving his signature have nothing to do with him?

Yeah, are they saying that The Smartest Man in the World, Mr. Hopeychangey himself who was to be ready on day one was rolled by a bunch of "business as usual" Democratic Party hacks?

 

[GeraldMonroe]

You're really jumping on me here.

Look, I'm just trying to be intellectually honest. Even if I thought that Obama was about the blow up the United States, I would have to be honest and say the man has a high IQ, even if he were about to kill us all. I'm not going to be intellectually dishonest and say the man is a gibbering idiot who snuck into Harvard Law through affirmative action, even if the man were about to order me arrested and sent to the gulag.

As for signing a bill or not : politics is a horse trading game. Obama did not have the power to remove the pork without consequences. (because if he sent the bill back, he would lose 'favor points' with democrats, making it harder for the next legislation to pass, and so on and so forth. This is why the Republican's "contract with America" ultimately fell apart, because the republicans burned up their political capital in the government showdown versus Bill Clinton. Maybe politics shouldn't work that way, but the reason it does is that the rules of the game, as set by the Constitution, tend to make it this way. A Constitutional Amendment is needed to give the President line item veto power, or term limits on Congressmen and senators, in order to fix this. However, those are virtually impossible to pass..I recall from History class that 50 years or more would go by between the time a Constitutional Amendment is needed and when it gets passed)

 

[chessknt]

Now you changed your mind--it did have something to do with him, but he just HAD to do it in order for future legislation to pass. This isnt how our government was intended to work and the fact that he is perpetuating it instead of standing up for what he believes in (and FAR more importantly--what we elected him for) makes him a tool, especially since he is the most powerful man in the world right now. And having a tool for a president sucks ass, especially when so many people refuse to recognize him as such.

 

[DrYoda]

Look, I'm just trying to be intellectually honest. Even if I thought that Obama was about the blow up the United States, I would have to be honest and say the man has a high IQ, even if he were about to kill us all. I'm not going to be intellectually dishonest and say the man is a gibbering idiot who snuck into Harvard Law through affirmative action, even if the man were about to order me arrested and sent to the gulag.

You seem very caught up on Obama's IQ. If you are going to get caught up on something about him make it his actions, because his actions are what matter.

 

[GeraldMonroe]

No, I haven't changed my mind : it's quid pro quo. Obama wanted the spending bill to go his way, including things that democratic members of Congress did not want. The sheer magnitude of it was so much that even many of the democrats did not want to waste that much Federal money.

How do you think he got the holdouts to agree to let it go through? It's horse trading. The man's platform is change, and he has changed a large number of things in the executive branch. However, in order to take real actions to make his proposed changes go through, he has to still play the game and make compromises. The very nature of being a politician means even the best ones do have to compromise.

 

[GeraldMonroe]

You seem very caught up on Obama's IQ. If you are going to get caught up on something about him make it his actions, because his actions are what matter.

I'm caught up on being intellectually honest. I'm focusing on IQ because I read the transcript of what the man had to say during that 'town hall meeting'. He answered questions from the live audience in a manner that did not appear to give him a chance to prepare ahead of time. He answered each question with a more or less straight answer, with little doublespeak, and a reasonably well thought out position. For this reason, I think the man is one of the better politicians to reach this level in a very long time. The media doesn't swoon over him merely because the man is half black.

How about you read the transcript of the man's talk in it's entirety (took me about 25 minutes) and get back to me after you've looked at the primary source, and tell me if you still think the man's an idiot. http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-by-the-President-at-Open-for-Questions-Town-Hall/

 

[DrYoda]

I'm caught up on being intellectually honest. I'm focusing on IQ because I read the transcript of what the man had to say during that 'town hall meeting'. He answered questions from the live audience in a manner that did not appear to give him a chance to prepare ahead of time. He answered each question with a more or less straight answer, with little doublespeak, and a reasonably well thought out position. For this reason, I think the man is one of the better politicians to reach this level in a very long time. The media doesn't swoon over him merely because the man is half black.

How about you read the transcript of the man's talk in it's entirety (took me about 25 minutes) and get back to me after you've looked at the primary source, and tell me if you still think the man's an idiot. http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-by-the-President-at-Open-for-Questions-Town-Hall/

Um, I never said he wasn't intelligent. What I am saying is that a high IQ or SAT score does not mean that he is doing a good job. Nor does it in anyway make poor performance anything other than poor performance.

 

[GeraldMonroe]

In the case of Mr. Obama, we really have no idea if he is smart or not because his educational records have been embargoed.
I'm smarter than most of you, every President since Ronald Reagan, and I went to no-prestige state university where I had a B average in everything.

This was who I originally responded to. I pointed out the George W's 1205 SAT score wasn't 95th percentile, and that Obama appears to know what he is talking about in that meeting I linked, when he was speaking his own ideas without using a teleprompter.

I also pointed out that it's very annoying that people who hate Obama's policies tend to make up whatever bull-s--- they can to discredit the man, rather than focusing on anything of substance.

 

[atomi]

-

 

[45408]

Where did $50k per year come from? Did you just pull that out of the air? Is that how much money everyone who is NOT a doctor makes? If I don't finish medical school, am I destined to $50k/year serfdom in bachelor-degree-land for the rest of my life? I thought my family were the only people who thought like this. Guess I was wrong.

Cute. $50,000 is a GENEROUS figure for the AVERAGE type of job that a new college graduate could get with a degree in biology or chemistry, the most common major for a pre-med. This was clearly not a career-long income projection attempt. We were talking about the kind of person who would work for a few years after college and before med school. Do you have a more realistic scenario you'd care to share?

This career, this doctor-thing, just makes me sick sometimes.

You are not Agent Smith.

 

[Riboflavin]

You are not Agent Smith.

 

[DarknightX]

Where did $50k per year come from? Did you just pull that out of the air? Is that how much money everyone who is NOT a doctor makes? If I don't finish medical school, am I destined to $50k/year serfdom in bachelor-degree-land for the rest of my life? I thought my family were the only people who thought like this. Guess I was wrong.

This career, this doctor-thing, just makes me sick sometimes.

How about you go read the previous posts before you start your making your irrelevant comments. If you have anything valid/intelligent to add to the discussion, then do so. Otherwise, get the f out of here.

If this "doctor-thing" makes you sick, then why are you even on a message board for doctors/med students/pre-meds?

 

[maceo]

Whoa. You are way to respectful of higher education. Many people in government have expensive educations from elite universities but would you say that government has done anything really intelligent in the last 30 years? The last smart President was Ronald Reagan who was a complex individual, a brilliant writer (if you have read his memoirs), and a guy who thought deeply about the role of government and yet stuck to a few big ideas and had the good sense to not try to micromanage everything which has been the trend since his presidency and is in full flower with Mr. Obama.

And any old idiot can get into Harvard Law, Harvard, Johns Hopkins and any old school you care to mention because they certainly turn out their fair share of any old idiots, that is, people who may be hyper-educated but lack the, I don't now, let's call it a filter to discriminate good from bad and reasonable from unreasonable; higher education in the liberal arts being today mostly indoctrination and not education. I know, for example, political science PhDs who purport to be experts in American Government but have never read The Federalist Papers or any of our founding documents, the education they received having been filtered and sanitized through the ideological lenses of the Inner Party.

In the case of Mr. Obama, we really have no idea if he is smart or not because his educational records have been embargoed. Did he fail a bunch of classes? Were his SATs low? His LSATs? Did he get in by affirmative action? Did he take mostly fluffy classes as an undergrad? We don't know because President Obama will not release his transcripts. Why not?

President Bush's SAT score was 1205, by the way, not as high as most of ours but respectable (94th percentile?) and his grades were higher than both Senator Kerry's and Vice President Gore's; Mr. Gore was kicked out of graduate school for bad grades, I believe.

Live by the sword, die by the sword. If you are going to hold academic credientials as the standard for intelligence than Mr. Bush with a Harvard MBA, no small accomplishment, is at least smarter than Mr. Gore and Mr. Kerry, The Smartest Men in The World, and if his scores and grades are higher than President Obama's...then there you go.

I'm smarter than most of you, every President since Ronald Reagan, and I went to no-prestige state university where I had a B average in everything.

By the way, Mr. Obama majored in political science at Columbia, graduated without honors, so he must have had a GPA lower than 3.3. 3.3 is not bad, mind you, but in Political Science? Har. You think that's a rigorous degree?

Who cares about SAT score at this point? seriously. it doesnt matter.

My sat score was 990. who cares? I absolutely never ever prepared for it I got into a state college my gpa was a 3.7 and i had 90th percentile on my mcat

bill clinton sat score 1070 bush 1206 bill oreilly 1585. Howard stern's was 810.

What would obama's sat score prove?

 

[melanoleuca]

Who cares about SAT score at this point? seriously. it doesnt matter.

My sat score was 990. who cares? I absolutely never ever prepared for it I got into a state college my gpa was a 3.7 and i had 90th percentile on my mcat

bill clinton sat score 1070 bush 1206 bill oreilly 1585. Howard stern's was 810.

What would obama's sat score prove?

Well now I'm just confused. Apparently, in some elections being a draft-dodger is fine...and in others only a Viet Nam vet will do over a guy who flew jets in the Air Guard...but then another guy who flew combat missions over Viet Nam is not qualified over a guy who has doesn't even know from which end of the gun the boom comes outta'.

Likewise, academic credentials are deathly important if you are Republican president but if you are a Democrat the importance is variable depending on whether they are better than the Republican presidents...a "C" average and an MBA for a Republican showing a distressing lack of intellectual accomplishment while the same or worse for a Democrat is irrelevant and in no why hinders them gaining the title, "Smartest Man In the Friggin' World."

 

[melanoleuca]

Why won't Mr. Obama release his transcripts from Columbia and Harvard? What's he afraid of?