We Are The Donkeys
I agree. His statement (quote #2, post #74) was a very calculated, pre-meditated and primarily, a political one. It's straight out of the playbook of the political left. As the American masses continue to beg for more government benefits, physicians more and more will be punished to gain political ground with the masses who grow more and more addicted to their unearned government benefits. Forget that you trained for decades, and work like a dog day and night, under conditions stressfull enough to send most straight to the local benefits office to claim full disability for PTSD, chronic fatigue, generalized anxiety disorder and shift-work sleep disorder. Forget that you earn your keep and provide tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars of free care to the uninsured and underinsured per year. The masses out number you, comprise more votes, and therefore steer the ship. As things are now, the politicians count on the fact that if they cut your pay, you'll work that much harder. If your taxes are raised, you'll work that much harder.
How many times have you taken care of a patient who admits to spending money on drugs, spending money on cigarettes and beer, has a better cell phone than you, admits to being on vacation, has fingernails indicating time for a likely way over priced manicure, yet refuses to go to a PCP for their non-emergent, non-urgent, non-illness, asks for their Tylenol to be written on a script so Medicaid will pay for it and asks for a Vicodin take home pack for the road? Such people are neither rare, nor stupid, nor helpless. They are far from it.
At some point we have to ask ourselves, who are the stupid one's, us or them?
Those being pulled in the cart decide how far, how fast and for how long the donkey pulls the cart by deciding how much to whip the donkey. The donkey can "hee-haw" all he wants but as long as he keeps pulling, the riders keep riding. Only if the donkey kicks back and refuses to pull, will the free ride be over. The donkeys will decide if and when they've had enough, or if it's easier to just keep on pulling. We are the donkeys.
("hee-haw")