more stats on The Crime Scene They Call "Health Care"

[yurbud]

The duty of the physician, as embodied in the Hippocratic Oath, is to place the interest of the patient ahead of his or her own interest. The drive for profit stands in direct opposition to this principle. Here are some figures to illustrate what has happened to us at the hands of this predatory industry:

• The top 5 insurers in California denied, on average, 21per cent ($31.2 billion) of claims from 2002-2009.
  
  
• During the first half of this year, United Healthcare’s Pacificare denied 40 per cent of claims. The other four big California insurers denied 30 per cent of claims.
  
  
• A study this year by the American Medical Association showed that American doctors spend, on average, 44 minutes per day dealing with efforts by the insurance industry to avoid paying for care. The cost to doctors of this effort is $78,000 per doctor per year.
  
  http://counterpunch.com/simpson09212009.html">FULL TEXT

[enid602]

1. salaries

If 44 minutes of each workday are costing doctors $78,000 annually, I'd say they are probably being paid too much. Could this be one of the reasons we spend so much on healthcare than other countries, but receive so little?

[Scruffy1]

2. Too much?

Lets see-this works out to about a little over 300 dollars per hour in gross billings. Out of that comes malpractice insurance and other expenses. Sound like a lot but the bottom line is that doctors only account for about 10% of health care cost which is the real reason the tort reform idea is a joke,
by contrast some health care CEOS make over $5,000.00 per hour.

[enid602]

3. AMA

Well, if a doctor works a 40 hour week (all those AMA-approved television series would suggest they selflessly work many, many more), then (given that 44 minutes (or less than 10% of one work day) equals $78,000) he's earning $800,000 a year. Even if he's paying $600K in malpractice and other expenses, he's still taking home a lot. Of course, a lot is never enough, so his earnings will have to go up about 15% each year, and the AMA (the only 'good' labor union in the US) ensures that doctors will make bundles by severely limiting the number of slots in medical schools. Can't have any free market competition in something as serious as medicine.

PS: why would so many doctors from around the globe be itching to come to the US if it didn't provide the opportunity to make a killing?