<story><title>Why doctors are sick of their profession</title><url>http://online.wsj.com/articles/the-u-s-s-ailing-medical-system-a-doctors-perspective-1409325361?mod=WSJ_hppMIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsSecond</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>javert</author><text>The actual experience in the US has been that healthcare functioned best when it was closest to a free market, and the more we socialize it, the worse it gets. (We have been slowly socializing it for many decades through regulation.)&lt;p&gt;You can argue that we haven&amp;#x27;t been socializing it &amp;quot;properly,&amp;quot; but the way we are doing it is just the way government works in the US, and that&amp;#x27;s not going to change.&lt;p&gt;In general, we don&amp;#x27;t have an efficient, honest, effective government, so it can&amp;#x27;t do anything right on a large scale. Though there are some exceptions, those &lt;i&gt;are&lt;/i&gt; exceptions. Look at the Obamacare website scandal.  That is the rule.</text></item><item><author>toasted</author><text>Non-US anaesthesiologist here.  I love my job and relish going to work each morning. I spend almost no time on non-clinical paperwork.  I work reasonable hours, have some busy on-call shifts but am generally well supported by my department.  I earn good money in the state system - enough to raise a family comfortably and have a nice house, but not silly money.  I pay no malpractice insurance, but pay $400 annually to a non-profit society for medico-legal cover. If I want to I can do additional private sector work to earn more (but I don&amp;#x27;t). I live in a country where a high standard of medical care and longer life expectancy is provided for less than half the per capita health spend of USA, and the public health system is so good that the private health sector really does struggle to offer much additional benefit.&lt;p&gt;There are many great examples of socialised health systems in the world, I&amp;#x27;m not sure why the US ignores them?  Some of the WSJ comments list all the problems inherent in the US system and then blame socialism for them when the problem is completely the opposite?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>johan_larson</author><text>There is very little about the health care industry, at any level, that is &amp;quot;free market&amp;quot;. The government funds much of the basic research that generates new medicines and medical devices and then regulates which ones can be sold. It works hand in hand with medical professional associations to determine who can practice medicine and in what capacity; it also funds residencies, the crucial gateway to becoming a physician. It pays for a hefty portion of medical care (for the young, the old, the very poor, and veterans) directly and regulates how the rest is paid for (out of pocket, through employer-provided insurance, or privately purchased insurance).&lt;p&gt;There are a few islands of private industry in healthcare, but between the regulation and the direct payments, it&amp;#x27;s a government sea.&lt;p&gt;Barring the most radical dissolution of the current system, the question isn&amp;#x27;t whether the government should be involved, but how.</text></comment>
<story><title>Why doctors are sick of their profession</title><url>http://online.wsj.com/articles/the-u-s-s-ailing-medical-system-a-doctors-perspective-1409325361?mod=WSJ_hppMIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsSecond</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>javert</author><text>The actual experience in the US has been that healthcare functioned best when it was closest to a free market, and the more we socialize it, the worse it gets. (We have been slowly socializing it for many decades through regulation.)&lt;p&gt;You can argue that we haven&amp;#x27;t been socializing it &amp;quot;properly,&amp;quot; but the way we are doing it is just the way government works in the US, and that&amp;#x27;s not going to change.&lt;p&gt;In general, we don&amp;#x27;t have an efficient, honest, effective government, so it can&amp;#x27;t do anything right on a large scale. Though there are some exceptions, those &lt;i&gt;are&lt;/i&gt; exceptions. Look at the Obamacare website scandal.  That is the rule.</text></item><item><author>toasted</author><text>Non-US anaesthesiologist here.  I love my job and relish going to work each morning. I spend almost no time on non-clinical paperwork.  I work reasonable hours, have some busy on-call shifts but am generally well supported by my department.  I earn good money in the state system - enough to raise a family comfortably and have a nice house, but not silly money.  I pay no malpractice insurance, but pay $400 annually to a non-profit society for medico-legal cover. If I want to I can do additional private sector work to earn more (but I don&amp;#x27;t). I live in a country where a high standard of medical care and longer life expectancy is provided for less than half the per capita health spend of USA, and the public health system is so good that the private health sector really does struggle to offer much additional benefit.&lt;p&gt;There are many great examples of socialised health systems in the world, I&amp;#x27;m not sure why the US ignores them?  Some of the WSJ comments list all the problems inherent in the US system and then blame socialism for them when the problem is completely the opposite?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>forkandwait</author><text>Downvoted, here is why:&lt;p&gt;I find your statements to be over general to an almost crazy degree -- &amp;quot;the actual experience&amp;quot;?  Everywhere? &amp;quot;In general we don&amp;#x27;t have an honest effective government&amp;quot;  -- really?  Got data?  Etc, etc.&lt;p&gt;Also, I would be interested in specific metrics of worse and better -- you make the claim it is worse because of regulation, which you imply is basically the same as socialized funding (which it isn&amp;#x27;t).  So where is the data?&lt;p&gt;No offense, but this sounds like canned right wing bullshit rhetoric straight off Fox News.  Granted, there is plenty of canned rhetoric on all &amp;quot;sides&amp;quot; to go around, but that doesn&amp;#x27;t make this any better.</text></comment>