# Access to medical care or "Do you really want a doctor who can't afford a Ferrari?" **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 8, 2017, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/access-to-medical-care-or-do-you-really-want-a-doctor-who-cant-afford-a-ferrari/786115 "2017-05-08T05:23:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2017, 9:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/access-to-medical-care-or-do-you-really-want-a-doctor-who-cant-afford-a-ferrari/786115/41 "2017-05-09T09:12:44Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > But I don’t want my doctor to be someone who became one in order to be able to afford a Ferrari. Ferrari or not, you would be hard put to it to find many doctors in the UK who think the NHS should be replaced with a for-profit system (nor, come to that, that many who’d prefer a state-regulated insurance+co-pay system as on the Continent). The system goes through cycles of complaint that it isn’t getting enough funding, or that this or that group of staff is understaffed because they’re underpaid and/or overworked (especially in the run-up to the annual budget round and/or elections), but there is no drive to say they’d all be better off in the private sector and dealing with insurance companies. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2017, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/access-to-medical-care-or-do-you-really-want-a-doctor-who-cant-afford-a-ferrari/786115/42 "2017-05-09T14:01:49Z")
> [@PatrickLondon](#): > > Ferrari or not, you would be hard put to it to find many doctors in the UK who think the NHS should be replaced with a for-profit system (nor, come to that, that many who’d prefer a state-regulated insurance+co-pay system as on the Continent). I’m not sure “I like things the way they are” is a convincing argument because that’s the way it is everyone. Canada, the UK, France and Germany all have rather distinctly different methods of delivering universal health care and I’m sure you’ll find a huge cohort of its participants who insist the system is fine, they just need more resources. That’s certainly the chorus in Canada; don’t change the system, give us more money. They can’t all be perfectly right; I am sure those four countries could learn something from one another. People don’t like change. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2017, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/access-to-medical-care-or-do-you-really-want-a-doctor-who-cant-afford-a-ferrari/786115/43 "2017-05-09T14:10:38Z")
“Life is unfair” Yes, yes the Universe is unfair. _ **But the beauty of being Human is that we have the ability to create fairness, to create Justice in our world.** _ These people just don’t want to, because they’re profiting from all the injustice. ---
**Author:** ![drewder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/57b2e6/32.png) [@drewder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewder)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2017, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/access-to-medical-care-or-do-you-really-want-a-doctor-who-cant-afford-a-ferrari/786115/44 "2017-05-09T14:41:07Z")
I think the more important question is “Do you really want a doctor who can’t afford to go to medical school?” In the UK they are importing more and more doctors from developing countries because the national health service isn’t paying enough to employ British trained doctors. Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk ---
**Author:** ![Isamu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/7c8e57/32.png) [@Isamu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isamu)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2017, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/access-to-medical-care-or-do-you-really-want-a-doctor-who-cant-afford-a-ferrari/786115/45 "2017-05-09T14:48:39Z")
> [@drewder](#): > > I think the more important question is “Do you really want a doctor who can’t afford to go to medical school?” In the UK they are importing more and more doctors from developing countries because the national health service isn’t paying enough to employ British trained doctors. > > Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk I don’t even know if this is true or not, but if it is… so where are the British trained doctors going to work? Other countries? Is that a problem? Or is it that you think foreign trained doctors are somehow worse? Don’t British laws require all medical doctors to satisfy certain requirements? ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2017, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/access-to-medical-care-or-do-you-really-want-a-doctor-who-cant-afford-a-ferrari/786115/46 "2017-05-09T15:02:27Z")
> [@Jophiel](#): > > More to my above point, spare me the tiresome “You’re better off than a trillionaire caveman!” schtick. That’s not the point of my remark. Do you believe that, if the labor and environmental reforms of the 20th century were revoked, that companies wouldn’t immediately slip back into offering $2/hr wages and hiring kids? Do you somehow think that this time, the “market forces” would magically create living wages where they can’t do so now with minimum wage? Do you believe that they wouldn’t immediately return to dumping their waste wherever, polluting the air, etc? When we have people in government right now trying to allow them to do exactly that? > > Capitalism has indeed done a deal of good in advancing technology, etc. It’s also a predatory system that will happily feed upon the lower and middle class without protections and assuming that the free market will bring health care to all is ridiculous. The obvious answer is yes. We have laws against murder but there are still tens of thousands of murders a year. Third world countries that have laws against child labor still have child labor problems. The reason there is no child labor problem in the US is because no parent wants their six year old to work instead of going to school. Currently 2.6% of American workers make minimum wage. What keeps the other 97.4% of Americans in good wages? Market forces. Pollution is a different story because the market does not do a good job in dealing with certain externalities, but the market is what keeps wages high. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2017, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/access-to-medical-care-or-do-you-really-want-a-doctor-who-cant-afford-a-ferrari/786115/47 "2017-05-09T15:04:42Z")
> [@Jophiel](#): > > Do you believe that, if the labor and environmental reforms of the 20th century were revoked, that companies wouldn’t immediately slip back into offering $2/hr wages and hiring kids? Why do companies offer more than minimum wage now? 95+% of the US workforce earns more than MW, and most of those who do are not supporting themselves or anyone else, and don’t live in poor households. Since the law allows companies to offer less, why do they offer more? > [@](#): > > Do you somehow think that this time, the “market forces” would magically create living wages where they can’t do so now with minimum wage? Market forces have already done that - the vast majority of US workers already earn more than MW. And almost three quarters of poor households do not have a full-time, year round worker. If capitalism is this inexorable race to the bottom, why do workers seem to end up there so rarely? Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2017, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/access-to-medical-care-or-do-you-really-want-a-doctor-who-cant-afford-a-ferrari/786115/48 "2017-05-09T15:11:39Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > You know that we’ve only developed one new antibiotic in the past 30-odd years, right? Do you know why? It’s (at least in part) because the market-based healthcare system doesn’t prioritize antibiotics. Yet we come up with new erectile dysfunction and cholesterol medicines practically on a daily basis. That is a gross oversimplification. New drugs cost $2 billion to bring to market. This is because of government regulations. They only stay on patent for 10 years. Because older antibiotics are used first companies have to make up the $2 billion on development by using them on the rare infections that don’t respond to current drugs. If regulations were changed then it would be easier to produce drugs and we would get more of them. Heart disease is the largest killer in the US it makes sense to have more cholesterol medicines, and erectile dysfunction drugs are based on a drug that was first used to treat angina. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2017, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/access-to-medical-care-or-do-you-really-want-a-doctor-who-cant-afford-a-ferrari/786115/49 "2017-05-09T15:15:55Z")
> [@Isamu](#): > > I can’t believe in his “thought experiment” he wouldn’t show the 4 kids how to share the three apples so that everyone gets fed. He’d rather one kid go hungry, because he can’t concieve of cutting an apple. > > He would make a horrible, horrible, parent. Since the analogy is to medicine this would be like given four six people 3/4 of an effective dose. So instead of three healthy kids and one sick one, you would get 4 still sick kids. If you want to make all four kids healthy you need to produce more, which is the point of the analogy. ---
**Author:** ![Ann\_Hedonia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ann_hedonia/32/319_2.png) [@Ann\_Hedonia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ann_Hedonia)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2017, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/access-to-medical-care-or-do-you-really-want-a-doctor-who-cant-afford-a-ferrari/786115/50 "2017-05-09T15:21:15Z")
just got some medical bills. I have good insurance but they still want you to see what they are spending. I had cataracts in both eyes. This requires a simple outpatient surgery. Without the surgery I would have been legally blind in one eye within the year and both eyes within 5 years. There is no non-surgical treatment and the vision can’t be corrected with eyeglasses. This is not a lifestyle disease. The risk factors are age and luck. I had the surgery on the worst eye recently. There were several doctors visits pre-surgery, including the initial diagnostic visit. The total retail price on those visits (what you would have paid if you were uninsured) was $2300.00. The discounted price ( what you would owe if you had insurance but were still paying off a deductible) was around $1000.00. My insurance is 0 deductible but I still had around $200 in copays. The surgery itself came in at around $7500 retail – about 6K for the facility and $1500 for the doctor. The doctors fee includes 3 post-op visits, they don’t want people skipping the post-ops because the feel OK and don’t want to pay The discounted price on the surgery including doctor would have been about 5K. I had a $100 copay. The actual procedure took 15 minutes and was done under a very light anesthesia ( meaning: I guess I believe them when they said they gave me something but I could really feel it but I didn’t complain during the procedure so I guess it worked.) My doctor does 8 patients in a 4 hour block.) I’m lucky to have my dreadfully expensive insurance ($775 a month for me only)and lucky that I can afford it. It’s not just cancer and other serious diseases, I would’ve lost my eyesight and my ability to work without this procedure. I’m also aware that its priced out of reach of a lot of people that might need it. If you’re going to focus on job creation you need healthy workers ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2017, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/access-to-medical-care-or-do-you-really-want-a-doctor-who-cant-afford-a-ferrari/786115/51 "2017-05-09T15:21:35Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > You know that we’ve only developed one new antibiotic in the past 30-odd years, right? Do you know why? It’s (at least in part) because the market-based healthcare system doesn’t prioritize antibiotics. Yet we come up with new erectile dysfunction and cholesterol medicines practically on a daily basis. 😕 There have been over a dozen new FDA approvals for antibiotics since 2000. ---
**Author:** ![Tranquilis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tranquilis/32/3639_2.png) [@Tranquilis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tranquilis)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2017, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/access-to-medical-care-or-do-you-really-want-a-doctor-who-cant-afford-a-ferrari/786115/52 "2017-05-09T15:23:24Z")
> [@Ruken](#): > > 😕 There have been over a dozen new FDA approvals for antibiotics since 2000. And more are in the works. I would know - I’m a lead publisher on one of them (sorry, no details - secret and stuff until we publish). ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2017, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/access-to-medical-care-or-do-you-really-want-a-doctor-who-cant-afford-a-ferrari/786115/53 "2017-05-09T15:24:13Z")
> [@Isamu](#): > > I don’t even know if this is true or not, but if it is… > > so where are the British trained doctors going to work? Other countries? Is that a problem? > > Or is it that you think foreign trained doctors are somehow worse? Don’t British laws require all medical doctors to satisfy certain requirements? 33% of British ER doctors [have](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/news/11883559/A-third-of-AandE-doctors-leaving-NHS-to-work-abroad.html)left for Australia. It is a problem for Britain because they are paying to educate doctors for other countries. The problem is that there are two tiers of doctors in the UK, junior and senior. Junior doctors can only become senior doctors if there is enough money to pay them and most years there is not. Life for a junior doctor is hellish with 100 hour weeks and 36 hour shifts common. After one year half are burnt out and 8% are considering suicide. As a result 40% of UK doctors were trained in a different country and may have issues with the language. ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2017, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/access-to-medical-care-or-do-you-really-want-a-doctor-who-cant-afford-a-ferrari/786115/54 "2017-05-09T15:28:12Z")
> [@astro](#): > > “Life is unfair- resources are limited - feel good promises are useless - capitalism will (eventually) solve the problem if left to it’s own devices”. Where is the incentive for capitalism to solve it? The insurance companies and doctors and pharma companies are all making Money now, so why should they Change the System? Politicans get bribed and elected now, so why Change it? > [@](#): > > His “3 apples - 4 kids” argument seems logical but it (I think) ignores the possibility that society may choose to prioritize making 4 apples available at some point if the idea seems like the right thing to do. The Standard Mother’s answer is to make applesauce, so everybody gets enough. (Or get a knife, if you want to teach fractions). ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2017, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/access-to-medical-care-or-do-you-really-want-a-doctor-who-cant-afford-a-ferrari/786115/55 "2017-05-09T15:30:59Z")
> [@astro](#): > > “Life is unfair- resources are limited - feel good promises are useless - capitalism will (eventually) solve the problem if left to it’s own devices”. Before I read a whole article on something called National Review - does he give any example in history of where capitalism -not the state or private charity - solved any big Problem? (Not the Problem that a few CEOs want to make even more Money). Safety Standards for cars? Govt. Food and drug rules? Govt. Not letting People starve in the streets through welfare? Govt. Primary Schools so the factories don’t have analphabets as workers? Govt. Counter examples for capitalism: … Nope, coming up empty. ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2017, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/access-to-medical-care-or-do-you-really-want-a-doctor-who-cant-afford-a-ferrari/786115/56 "2017-05-09T15:38:21Z")
> [@astro](#): > > Do you really want a doctor who can’t afford a Ferrari?" I want a doctor who choose his field not in order to make Money Hand over fist, but in order to care for his patients. If he owns a Ferrari\*, that means he is interested more in Money and Status than in his patients. How would I know, even if I were a millionaire, that he will do what’s best for me, and not what’s best for him? In fact, with hospitals, the US already has that. Partly to avoid being sued for “not doing everything that’s possible” but also “we bought the quarter Million Dollar machine that does ping, and now we Need to use it 5 times a day to get the Investment costs back” international comparisions Show that US hospitals do much more optical Imaging (either CAT or MRI - I always confuse those, but one of them is done with a high X-ray Dosis and thus not fully harmless) than other hospitals. So it’s not lack of availablity elsewhere, but rational sense / experts and lack of greediness by hospitals. - Not that I would know? I live in a Million-City, everybody uses public Transport unless they have Kids to Transport, stuff to Transport or are handicapped with a Special car. Otherwise, you waste time on traffic jams and can’t find parking spaces / pay through the nose for parking. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2017, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/access-to-medical-care-or-do-you-really-want-a-doctor-who-cant-afford-a-ferrari/786115/57 "2017-05-09T15:41:37Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Why do companies offer more than minimum wage now? 95+% of the US workforce earns more than MW True but misleading. Earning MW+1¢ qualifies you to be “earning more than minimum wage” and, without a MW, the floor drops out. “Oh, you’ll start at $1/hr but get a raise in 120 days of 3¢”. “Hooray, I’m making $1.03/hr! I’m not minimum wage!” Hell, setting the floor at a buck allows companies to say “We’ll hire you for 5x minimum wage!” and put people to work for under the current wage. Today’s wages and salaries are set around a floor based on MW – someone makes $12/hr because they’re “worth” more than the minimum floor for labor. Drop the floor and you drop wages. The idea that we would do away with minimum wage and continue paying retail workers $11/hr is incredibly naive. > [@](#): > > If capitalism is this inexorable race to the bottom, why do workers seem to end up there so rarely? Given that we’ve had government programs and protections in place for many decades now, your question is really more of a defense of that intervention than a defense of capitalism itself. We have fewer workers at the bottom because we have protections in place to keep them from hitting there. ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2017, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/access-to-medical-care-or-do-you-really-want-a-doctor-who-cant-afford-a-ferrari/786115/58 "2017-05-09T15:44:52Z")
> [@Jophiel](#): > > Capitalism has indeed done a deal of good in advancing technology, etc. It’s also a predatory system that will happily feed upon the lower and middle class without protections and assuming that the free market will bring health care to all is ridiculous. It has also several times sunk technological better Systems because others were cheaper, earlier or other reasons. The fully informed, rational consumer choosing the best Option is as magical and non-existent as the other parts of the magical square. Marketing lies to consumers; conditions under which his product was made are not made public by the companies (unless a law Forces them to, or citizen advocate Groups do); longetivity and cost of use are not made public by the Company (unless laws force them to); changes made between the last model (that worked good) and the new model (which save .10 Dollars in production by making it cheaper and less Long-lived); planned obsoletion to make repairs impossible (by gluing instead of screwing, so no replacements) etc. all make rational best decisions for consumers impossible. ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2017, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/access-to-medical-care-or-do-you-really-want-a-doctor-who-cant-afford-a-ferrari/786115/59 "2017-05-09T15:48:06Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > “Life is unfair” > > Yes, yes the Universe is unfair. > > _ **But the beauty of being Human is that we have the ability to create fairness, to create Justice in our world.** _ > > These people just don’t want to, because they’re profiting from all the injustice. This. Nature doesn’t have values, but we call ourselves human because we do have them. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2017, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/access-to-medical-care-or-do-you-really-want-a-doctor-who-cant-afford-a-ferrari/786115/60 "2017-05-09T16:00:36Z")
> [@constanze](#): > > It has also several times sunk technological better Systems because others were cheaper, earlier or other reasons. The fully informed, rational consumer choosing the best Option is as magical and non-existent as the other parts of the magical square. > > Marketing lies to consumers; conditions under which his product was made are not made public by the companies (unless a law Forces them to, or citizen advocate Groups do); longetivity and cost of use are not made public by the Company (unless laws force them to); changes made between the last model (that worked good) and the new model (which save .10 Dollars in production by making it cheaper and less Long-lived); planned obsoletion to make repairs impossible (by gluing instead of screwing, so no replacements) etc. all make rational best decisions for consumers impossible. Luckily we have a class of people who are fully informed and rational that can make the decisions for people, we call them politicians. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/access-to-medical-care-or-do-you-really-want-a-doctor-who-cant-afford-a-ferrari/786115.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/access-to-medical-care-or-do-you-really-want-a-doctor-who-cant-afford-a-ferrari/786115.md?page=4)