The great thing about you and the missus is you're both sharp enough to place the blame where it belongs--the insurance racket. (Not that I have any good things to say about the dumb bitch NP either, though.) When people take up the rallying cry for socialized medicine, they need to realize: This is what you get. This is just a tiny little wicked, evil preview of what you get.

I'm glad the problem was finally handled. Having children myself, I can sympathize.

My blood boiled a bit reading it, however, because I am a surgeon and because so many broad statements were made about my profession and lack of care. Let me submit that physicians all start off being some of the most caring people this world has to offer...their experiences with patients tend to beat a lot of it out of them. I know I do my best for patients, and unless one has gone through the process of becoming a physician, one cannot possibly understand the level of CONSTANT commitment it takes. I am a doctor. I do not stop being a doctor when I come home. I get calls at all hours, on vacation, in church, or when I am sitting in the emergency room with my own daughter.

Patients are not patient. They want answers right away (as do I when one of my family is sick). Doctors lie awake at night and wonder if they did the right thing...and sometimes find out that we didn't...and we never, never, never forget that. When patients do well...when a life is saved...we don't often even get a thank you. The majority of the time it is complaint over the copay or the hospital bill (over which we have no control) or postoperative aches and pains, or scars.

Most doctors try to reflect about our behavior, decisions, and patient complaints. Most of us are very self critical, and take the patients' complaints to heart. And yet, there is a growing public feeling that we are a public utility like electricity or water that is a right to have and a luxury to pay for.

We spend 10 of the most productive years of our lives going deep into debt and earning nothing. When we start practice, it may be 5 years or more before we can even afford to buy a home. By then, most of us are in our mid-forties. So, we have twenty good years of work to pay our debt, raise our kids and try to save for retirement. It is a meager existence, even when you finally make $200k a year at age 50, paying 50% in taxes with nondeductible med school loans. You find yourself looking in the mirror and wondering why you get up at 4am every day and come home at 7-8pm. Then worrying that if our own health fades and we can't continue the rigorous schedule, we will face ruin.

It's for the patients...and we are steadily losing the good will between doctors and patients.

I read newspaper articles, see an occasional sit-com, TV commercial, or blog and it drives a dagger into my heart to see perpetuated this growing perception that all doctors are greedy and careless...but I don't see it in real life.

My colleagues work extremely hard and sacrifice much for their patients. And the majority are DAMN GOOD.

Lastly, on the issue of where the ins premiums go...spend ONE night in the intensive care unit and you have spent two or three YEARS worth of premium there. God forbid a family member (or two) is injured in an accident and is in the ICU for a month. I see it almost every single day. Ins co's pay for the VERY sick...routine care is mostly the patients' responsibility.

Don't get me wrong, my colleagues and I perform as much as 20% of our service without ever being compensated for it. I have my issues with ins co's, but the state and federal plans (that's right, medicare too) are truly LOUSY. Not many other businesses where you are legally required to render service for which you have huge financial liability, even if there is NO CHANCE you will be paid.

Hindsight is always 20/20, but you should always remember (especially with children) to just take them to the emergency department if you are concerned. Go to a big hospital if you have time to get there, they see a greater variety. Your child would have been admitted right then and there, gotten the needed workup, and (sometimes) get the surgery too during the same admission. Ins co's have less power when dealing with emergent care.

When you see a doctor, especially the younger ones who chose medicine already knowing it is going down the tubes, you should ask yourself: Why on Earth did this person go through all that knowing they would work so hard, rack their brain, live with unshakable guilt, get sued (all of us do), be under appreciated and eventually treated like a natural resource?

The answer (which I'm sure is different for many) is that 1) for many of us it's a true calling and we still enjoy helping people and 2) if we could have REALLY known what it was like, some of us would NOT have chosen it.

Personally, I had a great career for 7 years before I went into medical training. I knew much of what it was all about, but even knowing now the whole truth, I would probably still have done it. The only thing that would make me leave it now is if the government decides to try and run the whole affair. The good surgeons will leave...and in will come the public servants...and I am afraid the post your spouse wrote would seem trivial in comparison with the tragedies that would follow. Just ask a veteran how care is at the VA. I have trained at one and can assure you that the federal government is TERRIBLE at running healthcare.

Less with babies, but in places like Europe and Canada, if you are Bill Clinton's age and start having chest pain...you will die before you get your bipass surgery. The wait list for EMERGENT bipass in Canada approaches one year.

I may sound uncaring, but I am being blunt (which I often have to do). I am glad your Burger was finally diagnosed and treated successfully. I know that if one of my girls needed surgery and the copay was $150,000, I would somehow get the money first and worry about ins later. You can always sue ins co's for not paying. You can't (to my knowledge) sue God to bring someone back to life or reverse permanent disability. I am sure, though, there is a line of lawyers around the block who will give it a shot anyway--IF you have the money up front...

If your car broke down and you needed a $200 part for it to run, how long would you wait without transportation? Most people wouldn't wait a day, yet the same for life saving surgery is somehow absurd? You are not even scratching the surface of the cost of that surgery, which is many thousands (mostly hospital cost).

Ins co's make profits...it's what they do. They do this in two major ways...decrease what is covered for patients (mostly routine care and elective surgery) and pay less for what is covered (take it out of the doc and hospital). All of us (docs too) should keep cash aside for rainy days...that usually means problems with health. As a correlary, docs often don't accept insurance because they pay too little...it's the
American way.

When we devalue the service someone provides, we will eventually get a less valuable service.

I kept pressing deliberatly the "surgeons admin".The surgeon himself we never had a chance to talk to about this.I know a family who went to him and did have a chance and he helped them for free.
About the car.....you have NO IDEA how many times we drive with a dangerous car because we had no money to fix it.And we never hesitated when it came to the surgery.THEY DID.We did NOT have the money and the only person who wanted to give it to us was my MIL.Where would we have gotten the money?Steal it?We didn't have credit nor credit cards.I know what the surgery cost,I still have the bill.200 may not sound much for someone who has it,but for someone who hasn't it is.
The situations about ICU or accidents are IF situations.Plus the fac that even WITH coverage most people STILL have to pay a lot on top.Medical bills can push a person into desperation.And believe me,I KNOW what I am talking about because we did haev so many that we had to file bankruptcy years ago.
I would love to keep cash on the side for rainy days.Its easier said then done and so far has never worked out for us.
People can make it look so easy,especially when they are on the better financial end.

You make it sound like we didn't care,EXACTLY like they did.Like we didn't do what we could to get the money.

What you are saying about Europe is untrue.I am from there and till the point I left there the medical cre was GREAT.Better and for sure as hell the docs cared more.

Thinking...I also want to say this:
Saying thank you to a doc should come natural.However...for the amount of money he just received,I would imagine you better damn well do a good job!
And also:yes,docs are human beeings,too,and that reason in particular they (the ones that are acting nasty)have NO right to treat another person like a car or some other piece that just needs some "adjustment".
And what the hell does it matter where the money comes from?Goverment,a person,an insurance....what right does a doc have to messure the quality of service he gives to where the money comes from?
Is THAT what you swear when you take the oath?By God I hope not!
You make it sound like every person is out to sue you.Thats BS.There are morrons outthere that do that,but thats not ALL people and therefore a doc should not even look at every patient that way!

The typical additude of "its the American way" is also absolute crap.The only American way I have experienced so far is that people are too affraid to change something,God forbit you'd wake up in the morning and the country would look different.Everyone hates it but only few want to do something about it.In a country this large with this many people that is absolute terrible!
NOONE will die if things change for a change!