News of the day

The T wrote: Empty platitude master.

Truth hurts sometimes doesn't it?  Weak weak dismissal.



Edited by Slartibartfast - July 09 2012 at 13:45

I'm sorry, did I say I was doing so?

Well known, mundane truths usually don't hurt so much. 

thellama73 wrote: ^Wouldn't it be great if millions of people just decided not to bother paying the "tax"? There would be literally nothing they could do about it.

The only way I can think of to stop paying taxes is to file exempt and have your employer stop deducting federal and state taxes.

Speaking of that

Slartibartfast wrote: Epignosis wrote: crimhead wrote: thellama73 wrote: ^Wouldn't it be great if millions of people just decided not to bother paying the "tax"? There would be literally nothing they could do about it. That would be interesting but I don't think that anyone wants to be the first one on their block to try it out. The government and the protectors of our peace couldn't handle 150M people not paying taxes. I'd think that they would just tack on a comsumption tax to whatever we purchase. The only way around that would be a barter system but  I can;t imagine your local 7-11 would barter for gasoline though.  Or they could just, you know, stop spending so much of our damn money. No problem that can't be solved by overly vague platitudes.

Equality 7-2521 wrote: Report supposedly finds 83% of US doctors considered quitting due to Obamacare I'm not even going to bother trying to find the actual survey to look at its questionnaire and methodology. That number just seems too ridiculous.

The article linked right to it. 

This bears mentioning though:

Even if doctors do not quit their jobs over the ruling, America will face a shortage of at least 90,000 doctors by 2020. The new health care law increases demand for physicians by expanding insurance coverage. This change will exacerbate the current shortage as more Americans live past 65. By 2025 the shortage will balloon to over 130,000, Len Marquez, the director of government relations at the American Association of Medical Colleges, told The Daily Caller.

Epignosis wrote: Equality 7-2521 wrote: Report supposedly finds 83% of US doctors considered quitting due to Obamacare I'm not even going to bother trying to find the actual survey to look at its questionnaire and methodology. That number just seems too ridiculous. The article linked right to it.  This bears mentioning though: Even if doctors do not quit their jobs over the ruling, America will face a shortage of at least 90,000 doctors by 2020. The new health care law increases demand for physicians by expanding insurance coverage. This change will exacerbate the current shortage as more Americans live past 65. By 2025 the shortage will balloon to over 130,000, Len Marquez, the director of government relations at the American Association of Medical Colleges, told The Daily Caller.

The shortage is something I've talked about for a long time. It's been a conscious and stated intention of the AMA to keep the number of medical schools low and the number of medical students admitted strongly capped to keep supply arbitrarily low and wages high for doctors. Towards the same ends, strict licensing and regulations occur which keep qualified medical professionals, such as nurses, from administering treatments, despite having the knowledge and training to do so.

Epignosis wrote: The article linked right to it.

Fine Rob I looked through it. The sample size seems appropriate for a 95% confidence with 5% precision. You'd probably like something better than that, but it doesn't change any of their inclusions so much even at the extremes.

If you look at the full thing, it's not just like a fluke question. Doctors in it seem very unhappy and consistent in the source of this unhappiness. Of course, very much more can be at play than mere interest in the quality of the nation's healthcare.

I don't like the way the one question is worded, but it's not atrocious or anything. I don't think it would affect all that much.

1. How do current changes in the medical system affect your desire to practice medicine? I'm re-energized - 4.6% Makes me think about quitting - 82.6%              Unsure/no opinion - 12.8%

The big issue to me seems to be the 4.3% response rate. That's really too low to me. There's a real chance of a selection bias at that point. Looking at the demographic information, most respondents are experienced doctors working outside of hospitals. I'm not sure what the overall demographic information of the field is in the country. I'll just say that despite the sample size still being adequate, the response rate really raises my eyebrows. I will say though, I thought this survey was just going to be nonsense from the eye popping number. It doesn't seem to be that way.