Healthcare?

Question

At one time being a doctor was about treating the ill. Hospitals where built to care for the ill. Today we see people going into medicine just for the money, and hospitals and clinics being built for profit.

Should all hospitals and clinics be ran as non-profit organizations?

Should the goverment set a salary scale for the medical profession?

Answer 1

Not necessarily.  Yes, the system needs changing, but it does not have to be as radical as you propose.  Look to western Europe where healthcare costs are less than in the USA, with less death rates of kids aged under five.

Answer 2

This is a very difficult question to answer. Non-profit does not mean they don't make a profit... It is a misnomer of the worst kind! Any non-profit organization can easily generate revenue and keep that revenue to expand and move into different markets. Even as a non-profit, they must generate revenue to support their existence.

Many hospitals are in fact non-profit corporations. Even still, a for-profit corporation can exist to "manage" the hospital, where they get paid based on the results of the hospital production.

As for salary caps... You really need to go and read and learn about the way it all works. Doctor's, Nurses, and other allied health do command respectable salaries; but these salaries are not the weight behind the cost issues. By the time school is done, doctors are so far into debt that the salary goes to pay it off. Nurses are no different. Even if you see a doctor driving a nice car or living in a big house, it is all bought on credit; and medical professionals are no stranger to bankruptcy.

The administrators and the lawyers are the ones who make the money in medicine; but I still don't support salary caps or scales. For one thing, it goes against the philosophies espoused during the founding of the United States.

There needs to be an overwhelming "correction" in the health care industry. It isn't going to come be reducing medicare reimbursments, rationing of services, or limiting salaries. It has to come as a whole (and can include all of the above, but it must be systemic). What the exact form of the correction is, I don't know.

I will tell you this... I've spent enough years in medicine to know doctors, nurses, researchers, and their staff are not getting rich in any way. However the hospital administrators, unions, pharmacuetical companies, and lawyers who run it all are.