Ray,
You haven't answered the point that I put to Mike -- that the medical
profession controls its own entry and thereby gains high fees and
incomes. This applies whether a country has a 100% national system or
a free market. In England it has been estimated that if entry were
thrown open to all who would like to be a doctor (and met existing
standards) then we'd have at least 20 times the number of medical
students. In such a situation it is more likely that we'd have a
higher proportion of students wishing to become doctors out of a
sense of vocation rather than to earn excessively high incomes. Even
in a free market the poor would be attended to. As a boy, and before
the NHS was started in England, I had an emergency operation (acute
appendicitis) that my parents couldn't otherwise have afforded.
Keith
At 00:51 10/08/2012, REH wrote:
Wow! I wasn't aware that the UK did not make the distinction
between business and professional knowledge rooted in technical
rationalism and a professional Hierarchy. I don't know whether
Mike meant that but his school certainly makes the distinction at
MIT as does the first Modern university in America at Johns
Hopkins. Your description of what I assumed was Medicine as a
monopoly has no basis is quality and standards. Economics simply
isn't capable of making the distinction. That's why America has to
have a huge Not for Profit sector that takes care of the things that
business is incapable of funding.
REH
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Keith Hudson
Sent: Thursday, August 09, 2012 1:51 AM
To: RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION; [email protected]
Subject: Re: [Futurework] They make more money when you are sick
therefore there incentive is to..........?
At 06:18 09/08/2012, Mike S wrote:
Keith wrote:
> There's nothing wrong in principle with a for-profit medical system.
Sorry, I agree with REH here. Medicine is a profession in the classical
sense, that is, a vocation where the patient always comes first.
What on earth do you mean by a "profession in the 'classical'
sense"? If by this you mean in the "traditional" sense, then I'd
very much like to know of such a profession in which its
practitioners didn't gang up in order to restrict entry and thus
maintain high incomes.
Keith
As soon as you make medicine (or "health care" if you must) into a
for-profit business, the bottom line comes first. Conditions that can
be treated profitably are, collectively, a money tree. The more of
them, the better. Ones that can't be treated profitably or that require
difficult and protracted diagnoses are liabilities. A for-profit
business externalizes liabilities.
- Mike
--
Michael Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada .~.
/V\
<mailto:[email protected]>[email protected]
/( )\
http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/ ^^-^^
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Keith Hudson, Saltford, England http://allisstatus.wordpress.com
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