Gov Insurance for All

[percyeye]

I'm a centrist who probably leans more left than right on most things.

I've learned that just because you take more in taxes doesn't mean magically it'll be allocated to the things you find important. I live in a state that current is Republican majority and are spending money on crap I find dumb and sometimes even repulsive.

It is mostly lefties on here calling for more taxes but would you want to give Donald Trump more money to play with? My districts congressman wants to use tax money to put guns in schools. Point being just because you give the government a bunch of new money doesn't mean it will automatically be used for what you think it will be.

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[Espressso]

All I can say is for each handout program a person enrolls in they should lose a freedom that those supporting them have. I’m pretty moderate so I can see both sides but there is more ignorance in the hyper liberals that throw out their economic book knowledge yet have to experience the real world.
But I’ll give you hyper progressives a chance even though my thought process is more like sb247... at least for now.
If you want to increase govt handouts then
You can only get preg and have a baby if you can afford it
You live in govt housing and it has to suck
You eat mandated healthy foods (not coke and taterchips these 500lb foodstamp behemoths almost always buy
You do community service for your free stuff while you look for work
I’d be glad to pay for free childcare for those who cannot afford it to allow them to do the following
No tv, drugs beer cigs etc
If you have some disease that incapacitated you to not be able to legit work then you are exempt


Otherwise we are basically paying people to sit on their a$$ all day like sb247 says.


But in regards to medical care for all I’ll go with the doctor that is actually a doctor here (wamcp) because I tell you what. If people do not have skin in the game they will abuse it and strip us from our hard earned labor. I worked as a nurse prior to med school and the abuse patients put on the system is horrendous and giving the government more power in this will kill physician bargaining power. So if that’s what you want to be a midlevel so at least when you need to climb out of your debt pile you will be able to


So until you have actually lived it don’t comment

The irony is that people who want this sort of thing, are asking for more governmental regulation and power; while claiming to be against the government being in charge of most things. Makes no sense.

I can get behind the idea that the actual doctor would have better insight on this. But I think it still comes down to a basic disagreement in opinions. I just don't see how taking away the mandate that ERs should treat people who present to them is the morally correct thing do. But maybe that's the naivety.

I'm a centrist who probably leans more left than right on most things.

I've learned that just because you take more in taxes doesn't mean magically it'll be allocated to the things you find important. I live in a state that current is Republican majority and are spending money on crap I find dumb and sometimes even repulsive.

It is mostly lefties on here calling for more taxes but would you want to give Donald Trump more money to play with? My districts congressman wants to use tax money to put guns in schools. Point being just because you give the government a bunch of new money doesn't mean it will automatically be used for what you think it will be.

Agreed that there needs to be more accountability in terms of what taxes are being used for. But again, it's not that crazy to talk about reallocating current taxes around. The % towards the DoD can be scaled back and we can be more efficient in a lot of other aspects.

 

[getdown]

I used to think like the medical students here. "I came from nothing and I'm ok with living on barely nothing. I'll be alright giving more in taxes when I'm making 300k+" Then when I started making said money, living in a high income tax and COL state, got married and had a family, loans became due, looking for a house etc I realized how naive and ridiculous I was earlier. Everything looks great when you have no one to look after but yourself and no bills/debt coming down your throat. We've sacrificed so much of our time, health, family during medical school and residency that by the time we get out not only are we behind financially compared to people working in business straight out of college but we're also behind socially without families and playing catch up. How the hell are we supposed to catch up if we aren't even allowed to make back the difference by paying more taxes. It makes no goddamn sense.

While I understand the arguments that you should do what's best for society, remember one thing. Here in America, no one gives a damn about you except you and the people you love. Go ahead and get sick, be in serious debt. Go to these dingus politicians/celebrities/whatever that are advocating "helping people by spreading the wealth" and ask them directly to help you and see what their answer is. No one cares about you and are looking for their own best interest. Get that **** in your head early and save yourself from getting ****ed in the ass later in life.

 

[wamcp]

I used to think like the medical students here. "I came from nothing and I'm ok with living on barely nothing. I'll be alright giving more in taxes when I'm making 300k+" Then when I started making said money, living in a high income tax and COL state, got married and had a family, loans became due, looking for a house etc I realized how naive and ridiculous I was earlier. Everything looks great when you have no one to look after but yourself and no bills/debt coming down your throat. We've sacrificed so much of our time, health, family during medical school and residency that by the time we get out not only are we behind financially compared to people working in business straight out of college but we're also behind socially without families and playing catch up. How the hell are we supposed to catch up if we aren't even allowed to make back the difference by paying more taxes. It makes no goddamn sense.

While I understand the arguments that you should do what's best for society, remember one thing. Here in America, no one gives a damn about you except you and the people you love. Go ahead and get sick, be in serious debt. Go to these dingus politicians/celebrities/whatever that are advocating "helping people by spreading the wealth" and ask them directly to help you and see what their answer is. No one cares about you and are looking for their own best interest. Get that **** in your head early and save yourself from getting ****ed in the ass later in life.

100% spot on.
Effective income tax rates (federal, state +/- local combined) can easily exceed 50%+ in HCOL areas/states for many of us which is absolutely disgusting. Not to mention your aftertax income you spend with also gets taxed again with sales taxes, which can be ANOTHER 10% tax depending on where you live.

 

[Boola Boy]

Lots of wisdom in this thread.

With all the comments on debt and physicians not getting paid due to Medicare-For-All, are scholarships that require commitments to work in rural/underserved areas more worthy?

Serious question

 

[deleted480308]

Lots of wisdom in this thread.

With all the comments on debt and physicians not getting paid due to Medicare-For-All, are scholarships that require commitments to work in rural/underserved areas more worthy?

Serious question

Those exist (nhsc) and the line isn’t exactly out the door

 

[VA Hopeful Dr]

Those exist (nhsc) and the line isn’t exactly out the door

Yep. I had multiple residency classmates go rural. They all got a minimum of 50k in loan repayment/year. One even managed 100k/year. That's in addition to a better than national average salary.

 

[medschoolzombie]

That’s what it boils down to here. It baffles me that medical students would advocate against their own self interest when you know the huge sacrifices and risks you are taking to become a physician, not to mention the enormous value that you provide to society which should demand fair compensation. And in the current system, fair value really does mean “300k” income, NOT “100k.”

Maybe this is the reason why physician advocacy is so weak?

Teachers go on strike out of self interest all the time asking for ridiculous pension/wage increases even while their doing so will put their school systems in ruinous financial positions (see recent LA strike).
Unions do not hesitate to take and tax and spend other people’s money for their own benefit (see the UAW taxpayer bailout during the financial crisis, or see the unions in chicago refuse to take any pension cuts while the crisis continues to jeppardize the entire city). They all ignore the welfare of the people as a whole.

Physicians need to stand up and do the same. Don’t let ourselves get trampled on by politicians and the masses demanding free this and that. We deserve fair pay even more so than these other non-physician workers who contribute far less to society

I always hear this argument that physicians need to stand up for themselves, but is there a reason why they don’t? Physicians have let themselves be overtaken by so many other fields (MBA, govt etc) that they’re trapped in their current positions. Why don’t they unionize like nurses do? I know the AMA exists but it’s seems pretty useless these days for advocating for physician interests

 

[NITRAS]

Lots of wisdom in this thread.

With all the comments on debt and physicians not getting paid due to Medicare-For-All, are scholarships that require commitments to work in rural/underserved areas more worthy?

Serious question

I think you should realize that people’s compensation has nothing to do with your amount of student loans. Just as much as your mortgage doesn’t effect it either.

My graduating class of 2012 had a median loans of $138,000 if I recall correctly. Most at ptendings ten years out won’t have said student loans. If you have $400,000 in loans, you aren’t entitled to higher compensation.

Edit, sorry mid-read your question. Rural areas generally pay more. Loan repayment is something to look at, but remember to look at the whole comp package as a whole.

 

[Boola Boy]

Poorly worded question: I should have said "should students consider more heavily the option of committing to loan repayment programs such as NHSC, IHS, rural-based jobs, etc."

I did not mean to imply that my student debt should influence what other people decide to pay me.

It just seems like Medicare-For-All will make all doctors employees of hospital systems, and something tells me that CFOs simply aren't going to raise their wages for physicians, especially physicians that work in urban, saturated areas. The other option would be to go into private practice (I have no idea how Medicare-For-All would impact private practice, I imagine physicians would see only patients with insurance that reimburses the most? But isn't that what PP physicians already do?), or to just give up and become one of the healthcare administrators yourself. MD/MBAs are becoming more available.

The last thing I want to be is a disgruntled physician who has to climb out of monster debt. But at the same time, I don't want to live in a rural farmland. So I'm just trying to find a solution to problem that most non-rich people going into medicine will have. Did not mean to sound entitled...

Edit:

So, you prefer not to have your physician compensation cut, but you actually are? Why do you want to work for free? If you make 300k in today’s system but only 100k in a new socialist healthcare, you really are gonna be happy about providing 200k worth of free services each year?

Anyway I just...can’t believe this is the kind of sentiment is coming from medical students. I’ll take myself back to the SDN practicing physicians area.

It's because med schools are selecting for SJWs now in the admissions process. Gotta drink the Kool-aid, bro.

 

[wontonsoup]

I used to think like the medical students here. "I came from nothing and I'm ok with living on barely nothing. I'll be alright giving more in taxes when I'm making 300k+" Then when I started making said money, living in a high income tax and COL state, got married and had a family, loans became due, looking for a house etc I realized how naive and ridiculous I was earlier. Everything looks great when you have no one to look after but yourself and no bills/debt coming down your throat. We've sacrificed so much of our time, health, family during medical school and residency that by the time we get out not only are we behind financially compared to people working in business straight out of college but we're also behind socially without families and playing catch up. How the hell are we supposed to catch up if we aren't even allowed to make back the difference by paying more taxes. It makes no goddamn sense.

While I understand the arguments that you should do what's best for society, remember one thing. Here in America, no one gives a damn about you except you and the people you love. Go ahead and get sick, be in serious debt. Go to these dingus politicians/celebrities/whatever that are advocating "helping people by spreading the wealth" and ask them directly to help you and see what their answer is. No one cares about you and are looking for their own best interest. Get that **** in your head early and save yourself from getting ****ed in the ass later in life.

All well and good but there is no equivalence whatsoever between making 300k and being a billionaire. It's not even remotely in the same ballpark. For perspective, if you made 1$ every second (3600$/hour), it would take you about 11 days to be a millionaire but around 30 YEARS to be a billionaire. No physician, unless they already come from money or are involved in things outside medicine, will ever approach these numbers. I argued earlier in the thread that it's absurd that our highest tax bracket lumps together everyone earning above 500k. I have no qualms with keeping the current tax rates for the existing brackets, but it is absolutely insane that people with 8-9-10-11 digit net worths are being taxed only 37%. Not only that, but our current government just recently gave about a trillion dollar tax cut to the wealthiest Americans -- where is that money going to come from? I'll bet my loan money that they are going to start floating proposals to cut social services within the next year by decrying the exploding national debt.

 

[dpmd]

Poorly worded question: I should have said "should students consider more heavily the option of committing to loan repayment programs such as NHSC, IHS, rural-based jobs, etc."

I did not mean to imply that my student debt should influence what other people decide to pay me.

It just seems like Medicare-For-All will make all doctors employees of hospital systems, and something tells me that CFOs simply aren't going to raise their wages for physicians, especially physicians that work in urban, saturated areas. The other option would be to go into private practice (I have no idea how Medicare-For-All would impact private practice, I imagine physicians would see only patients with insurance that reimburses the most? But isn't that what PP physicians already do?), or to just give up and become one of the healthcare administrators yourself. MD/MBAs are becoming more available.

The last thing I want to be is a disgruntled physician who has to climb out of monster debt. But at the same time, I don't want to live in a rural farmland. So I'm just trying to find a solution to problem that most non-rich people going into medicine will have. Did not mean to sound entitled...

Edit:

It's because med schools are selecting for SJWs now in the admissions process. Gotta drink the Kool-aid, bro.

Some of us in private practice still see patients with low paying insurance either because it remains profitable enough or out of a sense of charity.

 

[getdown]

All well and good but there is no equivalence whatsoever between making 300k and being a billionaire. It's not even remotely in the same ballpark. For perspective, if you made 1$ every second (3600$/hour), it would take you about 11 days to be a millionaire but around 30 YEARS to be a billionaire. No physician, unless they already come from money or are involved in things outside medicine, will ever approach these numbers. I argued earlier in the thread that it's absurd that our highest tax bracket lumps together everyone earning above 500k. I have no qualms with keeping the current tax rates for the existing brackets, but it is absolutely insane that people with 8-9-10-11 digit net worths are being taxed only 37%. Not only that, but our current government just recently gave about a trillion dollar tax cut to the wealthiest Americans -- where is that money going to come from? I'll bet my loan money that they are going to start floating proposals to cut social services within the next year by decrying the exploding national debt.

Listen, I'm not going to get into an argument with you about how this SHOULD be, I'm telling you how things ARE now. The reality of the situation is that billionaires and multi millionaires have their assets tied up in property and investments/stock options/etc where the tax rate is not the same as working class people. At the end of the day, the people who are paying the most taxes come from the upper middle class as we're the ones working and earning a salary that's taxed. We also don't have the ability to hire and store money at tax havens or find loopholes to not pay tax and at the same time we don't qualify for many of the tax credits that "low income families" get. Most credits are capped at income 100-150k. When they do restructure taxes to tax more of these billionaires a lot of the upper middle class are going to get hammered too.