Reply #3: I disagree that [View All]

[Skidmore]

doctors are not a part of the problem. As long as physicians will not allow public scrutiny of bad practictioners, malpractice insurance rates will continue to rise. As long as doctors continue to take expensive freebies from pharmaceutical companies, medications will remain high in cost.

There is enough blame to go around regarding the state of health care in this country. My personal belief is that insurance companies should be restricted to offering catastrophic or chronic care policies, and routine medical needs should be set at rates that are affordable as out of pocket expenditures. Pharmaceutical companies should be required to funnel their profits back into their R&D, and if they take public funding for studies they should be required to supply those medications at affordable rates without exception. Public marketing of medications should be stopped because too many people are self diagnosing and I believe many medications are being prescribed unnecessarily.

I'm tired of hearing about how maligned physicians are. There are many good physicians with good hearts, but honestly, I've never met a poor one who has survived medical school. Without exception, in my neck of the woods, they are considered big business and at the top of the food chain.

At any rate, the whole system needs to be overhauled, physicians not excepted.