Yeah, fuck 'em. Selfish bastards. Who gets into a career to make money for themselves? What assholes.
I watched it, and I honestly don't know enough to have an informed opinion on the subject. Do Dr's here have to do continuing credits yearly like nurses do? You would think they would, but I don't think they do. I would hope specialists do. But all that aside, I think one solution to the problem, and it may be forthcoming although I'd expect the AMA and the likes to scream bloody murder... I firmly believe that AI and one's complete medical history digitized from the day they were born will enable at least 40% of routine visits to be done in a kiosk type booth in the coming years. Everything from the dx, to drawing a drop of blood. Self serve "Doc-in-the-Boxes" if you will. No reason there shouldn't be. They would actually be better at flagging a serious problem early on. A thousand times better. As it stands now, you have one brain diagnosing someone and perhaps sending them off to a specialist or perhaps missing something. With AI you will have the compilation of a million brains. We have incredible technology now, but we are only at the tip of the iceberg. The family physician will probably go the way of the dinosaur in 50 years.
The point you are trying to make with AI actually fits with what I'm talking about. You said it yourself: " I'd expect the AMA and the likes to scream bloody murder." So you do recognize that they use their power to artificially increase the prices for medical services and control the market. That's only logical. Licensing has the sole purpose of protecting american physicians from competition. And who are the ones that pay that price (in the form of more expensive and less qualified service than it would otherwise be)? The american people. Same thing happens here in Brazil. I know an intensivist that did all his training in Spain. He is married with a brazilian anesthesiologist that I know and they decided to live here. He almost gave up after 2 years without being able to work here as a physician. In the end, they eventually granted him the right to practice here, but the guy couldn't work for 2 whole years. There simply isn't a justification for this. Intensivists don't do consultations. They work exclusively in the ICU. So they have to convince the hospital that will hire them(who has no incentive to hire a physician that is not qualified to treat their patients). And hospitals are extremely able to evaluate how good an intensivist is. On the other hand, you have pastors in churches claiming that they cure diabetes, cancer, paralysed limbs, etc... I've had patients that stopped their diabetes medication because the pastor told them to do so and that they were "cured". Naturally, the patient's tests were all a mess. I've seen patients that denied treatment for cancer for the same reason and die because of this. But in these situations, which are extremely common, you don't hear one single word from the "Conselho Federal de Medicina". If they are so concerned with people's health, there's no reason they should treat this any differently from someone practicing medicine(healing, treating) without a license.
With the above in mind, does it make any sense to let institutions with so many obvious vested interests control the access to the market of providing healthcare? Would anyone in their right minds give american pharmaceutical companies the power to decide what pharmaceutical companies can sell their products in the U.S. or even decide the requirements for potential new domestic pharmaceutical companies to open up their businesses?
We have PA's and NP's too. They are limited as to what they can do by the individual states they practice in. Lots of interesting tid-bits in these 2 wiki's for ya. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physician_assistant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nurse_practitioner Note the in the UK they did exactly what you said lol. In the United Kingdom there has been an expansion of the PA workforce, and regulation under the General Medical Council was announced in 2019.
As I stated in previous post-The AMA lobbying has been able to keep physicians in short supply by design. Simple supply/demand to bolster the pofession. But physicians have become (for the most part) mere pawns in the healthcare system in the US since the last 10-15 years. They do NOT control prices for medical services nor the quality of care. Insurance Co. Cigna, Aetna, United Healthcare etc. rule the day. Moreover, many independent physicians can't compete anymore, so they end up working for big groups, hospitals, HMOs etc. I strongly believe patients will suffer in the long run because of the monopoly trend in healthcare. So at the the end of the day most people will have to pay more for inferior quality of care while big corporations rake in the profits... Have you seen their glamorous buildings! So it is quite possible we will have a One Payer system one day.......but it might not be Medicare. If sensible folks don't wake up, and understand what's going on, we only have ourselves to blame. Yes, Medicare has slashed reimbursements to physicians. But ask physicians how well they did in the 80's and 90's. Waste was rampant. Medicare rarely reviewed payments and kept paying physicians and hospital whatever they billed. Medicare!
Eat right, exercise, raise your kids right, pray you have good genetics.... and avoid the whole damn thing for as long as possible. And then go out fast when its your time. That's the best solution imo.
That's what I meant by this... But if you're worried about a monopoly by insurance companies, which is in reality an "oligopoly". Try to put into effect a REAL MONOPOLY by creating the single payer system. Then you'll see the shit you're in when everyone responsible for providing healthcare is a government employee. You will discover the true meaning of the words "waste, expensive and low quality".
I don't necessarily buy the argument that somehow government employees are second class citizens in their work ethic. Some might even take offense to that. Americans for the most part take pride in being productive and making a difference. Locally, I have seen remarkable changes in the way government offices are run. I really think it is about how a society sets expectations of its citizens and that the individual's role in it can make difference whether you are a janitor or a judge.
Of course you don't. That's because you want to believe this regardless of logic. And that's why you contradict yourself. You're the one talking about "second class citizens", not me. You came here complaining about "insurance companies monopoly"(which in reality is an oligopoly, which means there's still some choice for consumers and therefore some incentive to provide good healthcare, even if it is far from what it could be) and then you defend an ACTUAL MONOPOLY which is the single payer system. That has absolutely no sense. Any kind of monopoly (private or public) will overcharge consumers and provide low quality products and services. I couldn't care less.