With all the consideration of the govt being the party that sets
medical prices at Canadian levels, who will pay for the R&D? Most R&D
for med stuff is done in the USA because we pay for it and essentially
the USA subsidizes Canadian medicine because they do NOT pay for the
R&D, US citizens do. The govt will not pay for it and are not even
qualified to do so. Most advances in medicine and drugs over the last
50 years would never have been funded by the govt. I know from
personal experience that govt experts rarely know enough about what
really works.
Most medical R&D is funded by pvt companies who know they will make
money if the process works. If they cannot make a profit, no more
R&D, no advances in treatments, no new drugs.

wrote:
On Thu, 23 Jul 2009 09:21:52 -0700 (PDT), Frogwatch
wrote:

With all the consideration of the govt being the party that sets
medical prices at Canadian levels, who will pay for the R&D? Most R&D
for med stuff is done in the USA because we pay for it and essentially
the USA subsidizes Canadian medicine because they do NOT pay for the
R&D, US citizens do. The govt will not pay for it and are not even
qualified to do so. Most advances in medicine and drugs over the last
50 years would never have been funded by the govt. I know from
personal experience that govt experts rarely know enough about what
really works.
Most medical R&D is funded by pvt companies who know they will make
money if the process works. If they cannot make a profit, no more
R&D, no advances in treatments, no new drugs.

The only way to cut the cost of medical care is to cut jobs and
downgrade the salaries of the people they keep. Nobody says that.



Not true. There is a tremendous amount of waste in the current health
care system. From records keeping, to nutrition and everything in
between. A third of it's revenue!!!

http://tinyurl.com/6lwxnr

Which states in part:

Home /Globe /Opinion /Op-ed James Roosevelt Jr.

Breaking the cycle of waste in healthcare


By James Roosevelt Jr.
October 22, 2008
Email|Print|Single Page|Yahoo! Buzz|ShareThisText size – + IMAGINE what
would happen if we learned that a major business was wasting a third of
its revenue by grossly overspending while rewarding poor quality and
mistakes. Everyone from the company's board members to its shareholders
would be outraged. They would demand answers. And they would demand change.

There is, in fact, such a business: healthcare. It is an industry in
which everyone has a stake - as a patient, a payer, or a provider. And
yet the stakeholders have been alarmingly quiet on the issue of waste
and inefficiency.

This is surprising because a staggering $760 billion -- more than the
$700 billion bailout of the US banking system and a full third of the
$2.3 trillion in annual healthcare spending - is wasted on things like
medical mistakes, hospital-acquired infections, medication errors,
overuse of emergency departments, and unnecessary lab tests and medical
imaging.

On Jul 23, 1:07*pm, wrote:
On Thu, 23 Jul 2009 09:21:52 -0700 (PDT), Frogwatch

wrote:
With all the consideration of the govt being the party that sets
medical prices at Canadian levels, who will pay for the R&D? *Most R&D
for med stuff is done in the USA because we pay for it and essentially
the USA subsidizes Canadian medicine because they do NOT pay for the
R&D, US citizens do. The govt will not pay for it and are not even
qualified to do so. *Most advances in medicine and drugs over the last
50 years would never have been funded by the govt. *I know from
personal experience that govt experts rarely know enough about what
really works.
Most medical R&D is funded by pvt companies who know they will make
money if the process works. *If they cannot make a profit, no more
R&D, no advances in treatments, no new drugs.

The only way to cut the cost of medical care is to cut jobs and
downgrade the salaries of the people they keep. Nobody says that.

A blog made the point that 1960s era medical care would be extremely
cheap these days but we do not want that, we want 2009 medical care.
In other words, what we pay for medical care provides funding for
continuous advances.
Some people will reply that the govt should fund such advances but
they are not able to. The only way to fund real advances is thru
people willing to risk large amounts of money on risky (in terms of
success, not to the patient) technology.
If an insurance policy was available for little money that said "We
will only pay for medical care using technology available up to 1995",
how many people would take such a policy only for care?
Unfortunately, if we want continuous advances in medical care, then
costs will continue to rise, it MUST. As the population ages, they
get more and more wrong with them and new technologies are expensive.
I do not know the solution to this problem.
When people think that drug prices far exceed the costs of R&D, they
do not factor in the costs of drugs and procedures that failed but
cost huge amounts of money. Furthermore, R&D is really expensive. It
is a joke in the R&D world that you should produce the most reasonable
budget you can and then multiply it by Pi (3.1415...). However, it
has been my experience that even this is too low and I always end up
spending 3X more than that even. Unfortunately, if you are doing it
under a govt fixed fee contract, you can never justify up front to the
budgeting officer why the costs will be this high because you can
never identify the sources of these increased costs beforehand,
otherwise it wouldn't be research.

"Frogwatch" wrote in message
...
With all the consideration of the govt being the party that sets
medical prices at Canadian levels, who will pay for the R&D? Most R&D
for med stuff is done in the USA because we pay for it and essentially
the USA subsidizes Canadian medicine because they do NOT pay for the
R&D, US citizens do. The govt will not pay for it and are not even
qualified to do so. Most advances in medicine and drugs over the last
50 years would never have been funded by the govt. I know from
personal experience that govt experts rarely know enough about what
really works.
Most medical R&D is funded by pvt companies who know they will make
money if the process works. If they cannot make a profit, no more
R&D, no advances in treatments, no new drugs.

What are you raving about?
Most of our drugs would be made by large companies you are familiar with.
Back in the 80s when Reagans' 'bum boy', Mulrooney was our Prime Minister,
he caved-in to American interests and changed the protected patent on drugs
from 7 years to 15 years. That meant that we couldn't throw out cheaper
generic drugs to avoid the gouging from the major companies.

On Thu, 23 Jul 2009 14:21:09 -0400, Gene Kearns
wrote:

We need to first cut the incomes of physicians. They should be paid no
more than college professor.... they have the same length of training.

I'm not sure I agree with that. Physicians have much higher risks and
responsibilities in my opinion. Additionally, most of them are close
to 40 years old before they get their practice established and their
student loans paid off. Meanwhile they have been working very long
hours at relatively low pay while they complete their residency
requirements.

I think the cost issue is elsewhere. I have seen first hand hundreds
of thousands in treatments given to people diagnosed with conditions
expected to be terminal in a year or two. There has got to be
something wrong with that.

"Gene Kearns" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 23 Jul 2009 13:07:23 -0400, penned the
following well considered thoughts to the readers of rec.boats:

|On Thu, 23 Jul 2009 09:21:52 -0700 (PDT), Frogwatch
wrote:
|
|With all the consideration of the govt being the party that sets
|medical prices at Canadian levels, who will pay for the R&D? Most R&D
|for med stuff is done in the USA because we pay for it and essentially
|the USA subsidizes Canadian medicine because they do NOT pay for the
|R&D, US citizens do. The govt will not pay for it and are not even
|qualified to do so. Most advances in medicine and drugs over the last
|50 years would never have been funded by the govt. I know from
|personal experience that govt experts rarely know enough about what
|really works.
|Most medical R&D is funded by pvt companies who know they will make
|money if the process works. If they cannot make a profit, no more
|R&D, no advances in treatments, no new drugs.
|
|The only way to cut the cost of medical care is to cut jobs and
|downgrade the salaries of the people they keep. Nobody says that.
|


We need to first cut the incomes of physicians. They should be paid no
more than college professor.... they have the same length of training.

Think about it, we didn't have these escalating costs until physicians
stopped making house calls to herd sick folks into overcrowded waiting
rooms for 4 hour waits to maximize income. (At this point, they were
working for the maximum income, not because the enjoyed the job.)

These folks made fabulous sums and were *very* surprised that they
became targets for lawsuits. Gosh, Really? Amazing!

Let's find folks that *want* to work in health care and pay them an
equitable wage.... that is the *same* thing that is going on in the
automotive industry today. A simple readjustment....

--
Agent 5.00 Build 1171

Grady-White Gulfstream, out of Oak Island, NC.

Homepage
http://pamandgene.tranquilrefuge.net/



Doctors work harder than College professors, and have to be successful also.
The record keeping adds tremendous overhead to the costs. Standardize a lot
of the records and you save a bunch. Limit some of the lawsuits. Sen.
Edwards made $60,000,000 on mostly bad lawsuits. Babies are born with
defects. Just because they are defective, is not necessarily the medical
professions fault. Those lawsuits cause lots of unnecessary tests to be run
to just provide liability coverage. Probably costs us 10x what the lawsuits
cost. We should tell Europe that we did the development work on the drugs,
you will pay the going rate. Not some arbitrarily assigned number. I did
do Biomed development. Venture capitalists dumped $45,000,000 into the
company. Little return. Should have been a good return, but they picked
the wrong management. But even with good management, it may have been a
loss. You want the cost to go down for the uninsured / underinsured? Make
it the law that a person paying upfront for services gets the best rate an
insurance company gets, plus some small percent at most. The medical
facility gets the money promptly, not 3-9 months later.

"Don White" wrote in message
...

"Frogwatch" wrote in message
...
With all the consideration of the govt being the party that sets
medical prices at Canadian levels, who will pay for the R&D? Most R&D
for med stuff is done in the USA because we pay for it and essentially
the USA subsidizes Canadian medicine because they do NOT pay for the
R&D, US citizens do. The govt will not pay for it and are not even
qualified to do so. Most advances in medicine and drugs over the last
50 years would never have been funded by the govt. I know from
personal experience that govt experts rarely know enough about what
really works.
Most medical R&D is funded by pvt companies who know they will make
money if the process works. If they cannot make a profit, no more
R&D, no advances in treatments, no new drugs.

What are you raving about?
Most of our drugs would be made by large companies you are familiar with.
Back in the 80s when Reagans' 'bum boy', Mulrooney was our Prime Minister,
he caved-in to American interests and changed the protected patent on
drugs from 7 years to 15 years. That meant that we couldn't throw out
cheaper generic drugs to avoid the gouging from the major companies.


Sure they are made by large companies. But it may take 15 years to make
back the money spent in R&D. For the drug you are buying and for the drugs
that failed to be a winner. Why should a drug patent time frame be less a
patent on toys or a Sham-wow?

On Thu, 23 Jul 2009 14:21:09 -0400, Gene Kearns
wrote:

We need to first cut the incomes of physicians. They should be paid no
more than college professor.... they have the same length of training.

Really. Interesting.

Most college professors I know and work with didn't spend 10 to 12
years of schooling before residency to obtain positions as professors.
You could make an argument for PhD level, but the only reason you get
a PhD is for research - not instruction.

4 years of college, 4 years of med school, and a 3-10 year residency
depending on what the doctor wants to specialize in. A 1-2 year
fellowship added if it's a specialty like anesthesia or surgery. That
doesn't quite match up with Masters post-graduate time which is about
6 to 8 years total.

The national average salary, adjusting for location, for an internist
is $90K to $120K/yr. The national average salary, adjusting for
location, for a college professor is about $90k to $110k/yr.

You do go up the income scale depending on grants, research funding,
publication, etc., depending on the specialty in college/university
education much as you do in medicine - they are about the same with
doctors having a slight edge in overall income - say, 5% or so.

You also have to consider that doctors have to pay for their own
commission/omission insurance, malpractice insurance, liability
insurance and about half a dozen other insurances that affect their
overall take home pay.

On 7/23/09 4:51 PM, Wizard of Woodstock wrote:
On Thu, 23 Jul 2009 14:21:09 -0400, Gene Kearns
wrote:

We need to first cut the incomes of physicians. They should be paid no
more than college professor.... they have the same length of training.

Really. Interesting.



You could make an argument for PhD level, but the only reason you get
a PhD is for research - not instruction.

More ignorant bull**** from SW Tom.

Most university employment ads I have seen for tenure track positions at
the assistant or associate professor level require a doctorate, and
those are for teaching positions. Obviously such jobs also may have a
research component.

Your "this is the way it is because I say so" pronouncements here are
consistently close to or even over the edge, and are reflective of a
closed mind.

My wife will be getting her doctorate next year, as soon as her
dissertation is completed and defended.


--
A wise Latina makes better decisions than a dumb elephant.

On Jul 23, 5:07*pm, H the K wrote:
On 7/23/09 4:51 PM, Wizard of Woodstock wrote:

On Thu, 23 Jul 2009 14:21:09 -0400, Gene Kearns
*wrote:

We need to first cut the incomes of physicians. They should be paid no
more than college professor.... they have the same length of training.

Really. Interesting.

You could make an argument for PhD level, but the only reason you get
a PhD is for research - not instruction.

More ignorant bull**** from SW Tom.

Most university employment ads I have seen for tenure track positions at
the assistant or associate professor level require a doctorate, and
those are for teaching positions. Obviously such jobs also may have a
research component.

Your "this is the way it is because I say so" pronouncements here are
consistently close to or even over the edge, and are reflective of a
closed mind.

My wife will be getting her doctorate next year, as soon as her
dissertation is completed and defended.

--
A wise Latina makes better decisions than a dumb elephant.

I taught college Physics for two semesters. Easiest job I ever had
and I had 15 "contact" hours whereas the normal load for a prof is
12. Not only was I finishing up my research too, I was writing two
papers and job hunting and caving every weekend and still had a lot of
free time.
I dunno about doctors in training, I have heard it is grueling.