The $3000 cost for 6 months of prenatal care and the delivery probably didn't even come close to covering the pay for the people involved, let alone facility and equipment costs. Someone paid the difference.
I don't think that's true. The prenatal and delivery were paid directly to the doctor. The hospital was paid around $1700 for using a bed overnight. We definitely do not qualify for any discounted prices based on income level. There was probably some discount for cash payment, and not using a payment plan.
Congrats on the new baby by the way tstrimple, how's he or she doing? [/quote]
Thanks! Things are great on the nights she goes to sleep. I think we're almost out of the 2AM nights trying to get the baby to sleep.
Yeah, a doctor under a capitalistic system doesnt care about you unless you are ill. That still seem like a step up to me from the situation where the doctor simply doesnt care about you at all, ever. We all know (or at least should) how well the farmers 'liberated from the profit motive' served the populations of russia and china. But granted, at least the mechanism design of a healthcare system is an interesting debate, and for sure, a free market in healthcare has problems other markets dont.
My remark however was not intended to discuss the mechanism design of healthcare, but rather the welfare (re)distribution component, which was brought up, and tends to dominate the debate. Typically, the arguments put forward to defend increased redistribution strike me as rather hypocritical, as my remarks snarkily aimed to demonstrate; I wasnt implying anyone was trying to breed a master race, institute the fourth reich, or anything of that nature, which I believe was evident from the context.
Then there's the other side of insurance, the one that health industry needs to pay. Protection against malpractice and similar. So a doctor receives X from health and needs to spend Y for insurance. At 7 minutes per patient, they usually need to see ~60 people per day just to break even. So the next time your doctor overbooks you and then rushes you off with some generic medicine, don't blame them. If they spent more time, they won't make ends meet.
If this is the case, then how does a doctor make money? Most doctors won't get rich just being a doctor, but you don't see many doctors standing in the welfare line, either.
I will say this and I think you will agree way2. The bigger priority is not the debt but tax reform. Unfortunately with all fervor over cutting spending and the debt, they've brought the cart before the horse.
I would agree. Tax reform, voting reform, and education reform are probably the top 3 things I think the US needs more than anything else. Not really sure what order I'd rank those 3 (voting reform probably not as highly, but that changes depending on where we are in voting cycles ;) )
[color=#1C2837][size=2]If this is the case, then how does a doctor make money? Most doctors won't get rich just being a doctor, but you don't see many doctors standing in the welfare line, either.[color=#1C2837]
I don't think any doctors are going to be hurting for money long term. The point is that it isn't the all too often picture painted by so many. Most doctors make an average to slightly above average salary. That article estimates $30-35/hr salary for most doctors over their lifetimes (this calculation factors in debt). To compare UAW workers average $29/hr according to the UAW FAQ and the average salary of a teacher ranges from $23-36/hr (avg around $28/hr). The average programmer in the US makes mid to high $30/hr.
The latter stats don't factor in debt, but I think the case can definitely be made that doctors don't have quite the outrageous salaries most of us think they do. They also tend to work much higher stress jobs than most of us do; that is definitely a non-trivial cost to take into consideration.
A short remark on the "99%" if i might... it would be far more honest to call it "bottom 99% of the top 10%", but that doesn't have quite the same ring to it. The 99%-ers are as much of exploitative bastards as the alleged '1%'. Worldwide, the bottom 90% have something like 10..20% of everything, including the slice of the products of primarily their labour, and the top 10% (which includes about everyone living in the developed countries) enjoy the extravagant and decadent lifestyle that would not have been possible without exploitation of the 90%.
On the topic of wealth - suppose you are in a poor country, and you have a company that develops cheap wind energy solutions and such. Because, worldwide, it is well past the point where fossils are a viable option. Your products are for the needs of worldwide 90%. I have a game development company. My products are for the top 10%, who own something like 80% .. 90% of everything. Whatever you can pay your workers to do the low-cost wind turbine research, I can overbid 2x to do game development, or something similarly useless like ipods. Blowing immense amount of human effort into making the graphics look a little bit more realistic. [for those who do not know, I am earning my living developing games, so I have a right to criticize this entire situation]. This way I can shut down your development of the solutions for the 90%. For a long long while. The money will trickle down, and you will have income growth - but at rate of even as high as 8% per year, it will take 30 years to converge away the 10x disparity.
Now, you 99%-ers of the worldwide top 10%, you truly are the luckiest income bracket. You control most of the resources, and the development of new products, for the most part, is being done for you. Not for 0.1% (what CPU does 1%-er have in his computer? what operating system he uses? what games he plays? All made for the 99% of top 10%). Consider one of the richest people - Steve Jobs. He had no super-rich advanced effective treatment options for his cancer - the treatments for most part are not invented for the top 0.001%, nor are they invented for the bottom 90% - treatments are invented for you, the 99% of top 10%.
Even on just a national scale, saying you are the 99% has the same problems it does globally. In reality the top 50% is doing just fine. The top 70% isn't even doing terribly for themselves. Below that is more difficult, but "the 99%" is very misleading. Obviously it's to cause a bigger stir, but saying it that way makes me think #firstworldproblems.
Not to go off-topic, but I've been randomly reading CNN and tech blog comments lately. After the recent Foxconn news and Asimo videos I've been seeing this rise of comments like the "1%" getting rid of the "99%". It's an old idea though that's been brought up a lot when predicting the time when manual labor is automated. You see this kind of thinking everytime a new 3D printer is made also. Not to be a ludite or anything, but I think that's the bigger threat to the poorer 99%. That is when all jobs are moved into skilled professions.
Not to go off-topic, but I've been randomly reading CNN and tech blog comments lately. After the recent Foxconn news and Asimo videos I've been seeing this rise of comments like the "1%" getting rid of the "99%". It's an old idea though that's been brought up a lot when predicting the time when manual labor is automated. You see this kind of thinking everytime a new 3D printer is made also.
I read to here and started fantasizing about buying a 3D printer...
Even on just a national scale, saying you are the 99% has the same problems it does globally. In reality the top 50% is doing just fine. The top 70% isn't even doing terribly for themselves. Below that is more difficult, but "the 99%" is very misleading. Obviously it's to cause a bigger stir, but saying it that way makes me think #firstworldproblems. [/quote] Yep. Global scale is what matters now though, as the market really is global. re: 3d printers fear: the working class which would have been rendered redundant by 3d printing is primarily in china anyway. Massively exploited, as how much you earn is not really a function of how much you produce but a function of how much you own personally and collectively. E.g. if I didn't own anything, I'd not be able to decline a job offer of working for the most basic food, animal feed grade, total of maybe $10/month. The most interesting thing about global capitalism is the production of money themselves. Globally, the main producers of money (US, EU) get a lot of stuff effectively for free.
