The new healthcare bill will...?

[cardiology88]

My guess is a decrease of roughly 20%. What do you guys think?

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[Frazier]

This is new.

 

[just one]

Finally a thread about "The new healthcare bill will...".

According to the: (Dems) it'll save the nation, (Reps) ruin the nation, (truth) somewhere in between

 

[JoshUNCW]

Increase specialty pay.

 

[cubssox2000]

I take choice E) None of the above.

 

[gymtanlaundry]

wtf do you think?

 

[Cleavername]

My guess is a decrease of roughly 20%. What do you guys think?

i am not sure, but i do know a separate bill cut reinburstment to hospitals by 21% in total revenue. now to cut physicians and how hard is completely up to the hospital themselves. they can cut physician compensation harder than 21% or softer.

 

[Parts Unknown]

i am not sure, but i do know a separate bill cut reinburstment to hospitals by 21% in total revenue.

More like the lack of a separate bill (an SGR fix) cuts Medicare payments by 21%. Unless your hospital sees 100% Medicare patients the overall revenue decline will be less. Moreover, Congress will fix this retroactively, so there will end up not being any cuts at all.

 

[Cleavername]

More like the lack of a separate bill (an SGR fix) cuts Medicare payments by 21%. Unless your hospital sees 100% Medicare patients the overall revenue decline will be less. Moreover, Congress will fix this retroactively, so there will end up not being any cuts at all.

assuming they will fix it...retroactively....by all means, i really hope it will be fixed. for all of our sakes.

 

[armybound]

wtf do you think?

wow.

 

[armybound]

More like the lack of a separate bill (an SGR fix) cuts Medicare payments by 21%. Unless your hospital sees 100% Medicare patients the overall revenue decline will be less. Moreover, Congress will fix this retroactively, so there will end up not being any cuts at all.

private insurance tends to base their reimbursement schedule on Medicare though, right? so you'd expect to see private insurance reimbursements drop along with Medicare.

 

[elektroshok]

wtf do you think?

 

[Narmerguy]

I would expect a 10% decrease but not much more. I wish people on this forum wouldn't be so melodramatic about everything.

 

[mac_kin]

Don't really care.

People shouldn't be getting into medicine for money, ever.
If you want the big bucks go into financial investing/trading for big corp.

 

[armybound]

Don't really care.

People shouldn't be getting into medicine for money, ever.
If you want the big bucks go into financial investing/trading for big corp.

Not going into it for money is one thing, but you do still have to pay off loans and make a living. You don't apply for a job without finding out what your income would be. Money is a basic necessity.

 

[UnlonelyRoad]

private insurance tends to base their reimbursement schedule on Medicare though, right? so you'd expect to see private insurance reimbursements drop along with Medicare.

They don't actually. As Medicare/Medicaid reimbursements go down, private insurance reimbursements go up.

Hospitals, PPG, etc need to do this to stay solvent. Insurance companies don't care, because as long as you increase the prices equally to all insurance companies, they can pass the extra charge onto consumers and their competitive edge over other insurance providers isn't negatively impacted.

Obviously, all this could change in the future, but in the past that is how this has worked.

The AMA only signed onto the bill with the promise of the "doc fix", so if it doesn't come there are going to be some angry people!

P.S. The poll needs a "I don't have a friggen clue" option!

 

[TooMuchResearch]

Not going into it for money is one thing, but you do still have to pay off loans and make a living. You don't apply for a job without finding out what your income would be. Money is a basic necessity.

Not in Star Trek.

The acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force in our lives. We wish to better ourselves and the rest of humanity.

 

[chman]

. Don't care anymore.

 

[DoctwoB]

In the short therm, there will be no change or salaries will go up.

More people will have private insurance (due to subsidies for working poor), which assuming one has a non-capacity clinic, could generate more revenue for physicians.

Where the cuts come in is down the line, with the creation of a new panel to manage medicare reimbursement rates that doesn't require congress approval (congressional vote is required to override the panels reccommendations).

I thought this sounded great at first (Physicians and not congress deciding medicare reimbursement! No SGR!), but this panel must reduce medicare costs without:

Reducing payments to hospitals (until around 2020)
Rationing care in any way
reducing benefits in any way.
Increasing premiums/co-pays
changing eligibility requirements

With those rules, what else can be cut except physician reimbursements?

Also, the formulation of this panel is key. The reason medicare reimburses specialists and procedures so much more now than primary care and consults is that the initial panels that determined reimbursements had 1 representative from each specialty, meaning ENT got as many votes as FM. With dozens of subspecialty votes, and 3 primary care votes, its hardly surprising that procedures are reimbursed highly, while PCP services are not. Lets hope they put plenty of PCPs on the panel this time around.

 

[mac_kin]

Not going into it for money is one thing, but you do still have to pay off loans and make a living. You don't apply for a job without finding out what your income would be. Money is a basic necessity.

I see your point, but unfortunately I see many people get into medicine for the $$ before anything else, sure they like to "help people", but there are so many professions where people do just that as well. I don't see why a radiologist who sits at a desk all day makes 5-6x as much as a firefighter who is risking his life and also "helping people". The med school tuition is what's ridiculous. I think if people stopped treating MDs as "God", we wouldn't have half of the health care problems we have, unfortunately people like making their money and will see to it that the health care system is set up in a way that allows them to keep making lots of it, even if the policy isn't really in the "best interest" of the general public.
Look at many countries in Europe, MDs are just 'regular people' and they don't have half of the BS with their health care system that we do.

Corporate greed destroyed North America, nothing else.

 

[jj6vcb]

i am not sure, but i do know a separate bill cut reinburstment to hospitals by 21% in total revenue. now to cut physicians and how hard is completely up to the hospital themselves. they can cut physician compensation harder than 21% or softer.

Not total revenue, medicare reimbursements. Yes insurance payouts may change as well, but either way some of the cost will be a hit to the hospitals, it would be very hard to cut salaries to make up for the entire decrease in revenue.

My guess is a decrease of roughly 20%. What do you guys think?

I think you guys are getting a little loose with these estimates. Even something in the range of a 5% change in pay deals with masses sums of money if it is applied nationwide, and would cause supply shock in any industry except medicine (since there are far more applicants than seats we will always operate at 100% capacity of the labor supply). 20% is ludicrous.

Don't really care.

People shouldn't be getting into medicine for money, ever.
If you want the big bucks go into financial investing/trading for big corp.

You can't really say that it's shouldn't be a consideration at all. But yes, all of my ibanking friends are making bank while I prepare to take on massive debt.

 

[randombetch]

Don't really care.

People shouldn't be getting into medicine for money, ever.
If you want the big bucks go into financial investing/trading for big corp.

So anyone who has any desire to make a comfortable living shouldn't go into medicine? You're right, people who want to make big bucks (including the top students at top universities who would have become great doctors) should go into i-banking. Too bad for the patients who will be getting treatment from the lower par students (who, by the way, also want to make big bucks but can't get a job as an i-banker) who take the top students' spots.

Take our doctor shortage, multiply it by ~2000, and that's what the state of our health care would look like if doctors were paid $30k/yr.

 

[randombetch]

Not in Star Trek.

The acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force in our lives. We wish to better ourselves and the rest of humanity.

So the janitors in Star Trek do their jobs voluntarily? And the trash collectors?

 

[Frazier]

I don't see why a radiologist who sits at a desk all day makes 5-6x as much as a firefighter who is risking his life and also "helping people". The med school tuition is what's ridiculous.

Likely has something to do with the fact that the radiologist needs along the lines of 10+ years of additional training to do his job [successfully] in comparison to the firefighter who can often go that route with a mere GED.

 

[gymtanlaundry]

I see your point, but unfortunately I see many people get into medicine for the $$ before anything else, sure they like to "help people", but there are so many professions where people do just that as well. I don't see why a radiologist who sits at a desk all day makes 5-6x as much as a firefighter who is risking his life and also "helping people". The med school tuition is what's ridiculous. I think if people stopped treating MDs as "God", we wouldn't have half of the health care problems we have, unfortunately people like making their money and will see to it that the health care system is set up in a way that allows them to keep making lots of it, even if the policy isn't really in the "best interest" of the general public.
Look at many countries in Europe, MDs are just 'regular people' and they don't have half of the BS with their health care system that we do.

Corporate greed destroyed North America, nothing else.

wow. just wow.

i got nothin.

 

[J ROD]

gonna suck......more patients to see...while needing to see these patients to make the same money while inflation passes us by....

 

[Elpenor]

Don't really care.

People shouldn't be getting into medicine for money, ever.
If you want the big bucks go into financial investing/trading for big corp.

I'll make you a deal, you keep ~50k a year and send me the rest

after all, the money isn't what matters

 

[randombetch]

I see your point, but unfortunately I see many people get into medicine for the $$ before anything else, sure they like to "help people", but there are so many professions where people do just that as well. I don't see why a radiologist who sits at a desk all day makes 5-6x as much as a firefighter who is risking his life and also "helping people". The med school tuition is what's ridiculous. I think if people stopped treating MDs as "God", we wouldn't have half of the health care problems we have, unfortunately people like making their money and will see to it that the health care system is set up in a way that allows them to keep making lots of it, even if the policy isn't really in the "best interest" of the general public.
Look at many countries in Europe, MDs are just 'regular people' and they don't have half of the BS with their health care system that we do.

Corporate greed destroyed North America, nothing else.

Please take an economics course so that you can gain some understanding about how society actually works... Thanks.

To answer your question, it's easy: if firefighters made as much as doctors, we'd have way more firefighters than we'd need. If doctors made as much as firefighters, we would all be f***ed because no one is going to take out a six-figure loan and go through 7 years of hell to get paid <50k a year.

Basically, firefighters get paid less than doctors because the government's not that stupid. As for you, I'm not sure.

 

[armybound]

No need for personal attacks

 

[Cleavername]

it is quite useful for shutting up stupid people tho, and its entertaining.

 

[chman]

Please take an economics course so that you can gain some understanding about how society actually works... Thanks.

To answer your question, it's easy: if firefighters made as much as doctors, we'd have way more firefighters than we'd need. If doctors made as much as firefighters, we would all be f***ed because no one is going to take out a six-figure loan and go through 7 years of hell to get paid <50k a year.

Basically, firefighters get paid less than doctors because the government's not that stupid. As for you, I'm not sure.

Actually most fire department have long waiting lists of applicants...

 

[randombetch]

Actually most fire department have long waiting lists of applicants...

Then the government should decrease their salary.

I bet if you had to take out $160k in loans and study for 7 years to become a firefighter, had to deal with the threat of malpractice lawsuits, etc., etc., there wouldn't be a waiting list of applicants.

The facts are: if people want to go into X profession more than Y profession, and Y profession is more difficult to obtain, then the people of the Y profession must be getting paid more or else there will be shortages.

 

[ucladoc2b]

I bet we see a significant increase in all physician salaries.

 

[JeetKuneDo]

I bet we see a significant increase in all physician salaries.

Hopefully. Only time will tell.

 

[Bernoull]

The new healthcare bill will cause....

 

[7starmantis]

The new healthcare bill will cause....

 

[Cleavername]

The new healthcare bill will cause....

not nice.







JK LOL

i bet is something more like this

 

[Bernoull]

not nice.







JK LOL

i bet is something more like this

Urs capture's the true intent/effect of the law, nice, u win

 

[Bernoull]

Yup that's where it all began (boston '04)....

 

[matrica]

wtf do you think?

Wow 2X. At first I thought it was a joke, and I just saw an interview with the doctor. Wow.

 

[Bernoull]

If this urologist had his wish, 43% of Lake County residents shouldn't see him!! Not a smart business move, me thinks....

Democrats still pay with

 

[whatchasay]

Check out this article! This is from a doctor who reports his experiences and how the health care bill will affect his practice. By the way anyone who says not to go into medicine for the compensation is partially brainwashed partially stupid and does not understand incentives. Education is an investment, comes at a cost and only an irrational person with a paretto maximizing objective utility function would invest in something with a predicted negative return on investment. Why else does the profession attract the intellectual elite of our society?

lhttp://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2010...-care-law-isnt-what-this-doctor-ordered-.html

 

[GoLytely]

Why's he always look like a contestant on jeopardy?

 

[Narmerguy]

Why's he always look like a contestant on jeopardy?

He doesn't

 

[Hurricane95]

Don't really care.

People shouldn't be getting into medicine for money, ever.
If you want the big bucks go into financial investing/trading for big corp.

You know? You're absolutely right. F*ck it. Let's all practice medicine for free. Who's with me?

 

[Cleavername]

You know? You're absolutely right. F*ck it. Let's all practice medicine for free. Who's with me?

i was trying to come up with a real eloquent answer to your question then your avatar horribily distracted me.

 

[Parts Unknown]

private insurance tends to base their reimbursement schedule on Medicare though, right? so you'd expect to see private insurance reimbursements drop along with Medicare.

Private insurers do indeed peg their fee schedules to Medicare's. It certainly beats doing your own work to generate something that will look more or less the same.

This does not mean, however, that a 21% drop in Medicare reimbursement will be followed by a lockstep 21% drop in private reimbursement. Especially when none of the private insurers expect the cuts to stand.

Let's be clear: cut all payments 21% and most hospitals would implode. Without an adequate provider base most large insurers would likewise fold. With the millions of Medicare recipients/voters cut adrift, there wouldn't be an incumbent left in DC.

 

[cliffhuxtableDO]

Why's he always look like a contestant on jeopardy?

he's an actor. not a president.

 

[Myuu]

he's an actor. not a president.

As opposed to Reagan who was a president, not an actor?

 

[Anesthetic]

I see your point, but unfortunately I see many people get into medicine for the $$ before anything else, sure they like to "help people", but there are so many professions where people do just that as well. I don't see why a radiologist who sits at a desk all day makes 5-6x as much as a firefighter who is risking his life and also "helping people". The med school tuition is what's ridiculous. I think if people stopped treating MDs as "God", we wouldn't have half of the health care problems we have, unfortunately people like making their money and will see to it that the health care system is set up in a way that allows them to keep making lots of it, even if the policy isn't really in the "best interest" of the general public.
Look at many countries in Europe, MDs are just 'regular people' and they don't have half of the BS with their health care system that we do.

Corporate greed destroyed North America, nothing else.

I got into an arguement for like 2 hours about this with my brothers girlfriend and it ended up with her crying. She was trying to tell me that social workers should be paid the same as doctors and so should teachers, desk workers, etc. Like others have already said, doctors don't just spend 8 years in school, but another 3-5+ in residency, more money in one year of loans than most people see in 5 years, and they have the most crucial job in the world. You can't pay a doctor enough money in my opinion. Just because the firefighters saves people doesnt mean he should make the same amount of money. Hell a vet gets paid more, they save animals