If that were true, how would the system function? <Pinned Piece> thinks it is somehow tyrannical that doctors be required to see medicare/medicaid people, and get less $$ than they would if someone had a nice high quality, expensive health insurance plan.

No one is forcing anyone to be a doctor. You can make more money as an investment banker. At the university dental clinic I have been using for the past 15 years, the future dentists are about 40% women and, on the whole, 50% are non-white. As I listen to them and see how they are dressed, I can see them some of them are muslims from Indonesia, some are well educated Indians (same place Vishy Anand comes from), some are orientals, some sound Russian or Ukrainian. Really, no one is forcing <TPstar> or anyone else to be a doctor. The world is full of emigrants (like my ancestors and those of everyone here) who would like to come to America, experience higher education and perhaps become a doctor.

I think we are seeing a gradual shift towards more M.D.s practicing here who were born outside the USA. Maybe these are the doctors who will take the 1% cut in transfer payments from the government (part of the $500B cuts in medicare promised by Obama) and STILL be happy to be a doctor in the USA.

Those who see it TPstar's way can continue to ignore the Medicaid group. Just so everyone is happy.

Considering that it was our elected Congressmen who voted for this bill, I find it remakable that there are so many negative people here--these are the people YOU voted for. Are chessplayers so wildly wealthy that you have no need for assistance in paying healthcare premiums? are you the guys who never pick up a check at the restaurant, or buy a round at the bar?

--Thomas Jefferson>

The quote (the exact one) can be found here, page 66: http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=...

It seems to be in the context of how much power Supreme Court Judges should be allowed to have ...

My guess is that, deep down, you don't really like the people who you feel most need assistance of this type, and wish they weren't here at all.>

Vermont's single payer healthcare does not start until 2017.

Even good things take time.

Bad Guess.

MY GUESS is that you have no idea what it really takes to make the kind of people you have in mind, fully contributing citizens, healthy wealthy and wise, people that don't need the kind of help YOU think they need.

And that is kind of sad, it really paints you as a sort of elitist type.>

On the contrary, it pictures TPstar as a professional physician whose reputation and quality of care is in great demand. He obviously refuses to compromise his quality of care to meet the lower standard being offered by most Medicaid providers.

Medicaid often provides business for those Doctors and health care providers who could otherwise not find sufficient numbers of patients in a competitive medical market. Indeed, if it weren't for medicare and medicaid being paid by government bureaucrats to doctors and hospitals, instead of patients with their own allotment of personal or government money to spend (e.g. the Ryan plan of say $5,500 per Medicare recipient), such poor medical professionals might be forced to improve their services or be driven out of business.

We'd improve the quality of health care and reduce costs while reducing the amount of government red tape and interference in the lives of Doctors and Patients. Hardly, a "sad" outcome.

well, <GSM>, like you i am also a 'liberal' by instinct. however, i don't think <pinnedpiece> is talking about social darwinism.

<pinnedpiece> is talking something like the following , i think

<One rather minor event helped me push me from mere disillusionment with socialism to
active reformism. Although I earned a very
modest salary as a special correspondent, I
wanted to start a trust for helping the poor. If
only enough of us did the same, I thought, we
could raise enough to make a difference.
But how exactly should we help the poor?
Just giving away money would be a bad
strategy. It would be charity, not development.
It would create dependency, not prosperity.
No, I thought, a better approach would be to
provide money to the poor which will help to
buy an income-earning asset—maybe a small
machine or repair workshop.
But, of course, money would not be enough.
The poor would need training in skills too.
Otherwise they would fail to compete and go
bust. So, I would have to organise their...>

the above article is by <swaminathan> for whom i have a lot of respect

<pinnedpiece> also makes a lot of sense to a naive like me however , i feel that he is too far on the right. to backup that 'gut' feeling i need to spend a lot of time mastering economics and presently i am engaged in some other projects which would keep me engaged for a couple of years.

on this page , <al wazir> can kind of match <pipi> but not outsmart him , i feel. <twinlark> is a smart man. he kind of challanged <pipi> "i don't want you to feel that i have capitulated to you" and such. <pinnedpiece> is a smart man and he recognises <twinlark> as a smart man and gives him due respect. so , <pinnedpiece> asked <twinlark> some questions and <twinlark> went away to a chess tournament but could not make it back here to match <pipi>

<[S]ee the commentary by respected University of Chicago economists ...> You are back to your old tricks, posting opinion as if it were fact. Don't do that. Also, drop the sneaky underhanded way you refer to the "respected" Dr. John Cochrane, while dismissing Nobellist professor Paul Krugman without his first name or even an honorific, as if Cochrane's name is one that intimidates and Krugman is a nobody. That smells like smear.

Sometimes the inability to "change an opinion" harbors less worth the the ability to plant "seeds of doubt" which many here would be willing to provide.

Those facts being:

(1) Krugman's very left wing views are a minority, discredited, and disrespected opinions outside of the mainstream of his own profession

<patzer2:>

Your problem is that you can't use one set of opinions or beliefs to attack another set of opinions or beliefs and expect good results.

I happen to think Krugman is the better writer and very far from being "discredited"

You are free to believe what you want, but your tactics leave a lot to be desired.

Good luck with your market strategy.

ROTFL.

but <patzer2> is not talking about your opinion (unless you are an economist)

he says - <(1) Krugman's very left wing views are a minority, discredited, and disrespected opinions outside of the mainstream of his own profession>

Cochrane didn't write <...Paul Krugman has absolutely no idea about what caused the crash, what policies might have prevented it, and what policies we should adopt going forward. Furthermore, he seems completely unaware of the large body of work by economists who actually do know something about the banking and financial system, and have been thinking about it productively for a generation.> because he was in agreement with Krugman's opinion.