Outsourcing - Radiologists cheaper in India Lowering US MedCosts

[bleedingheart]

http://sify.com/news/fullstory.php?id=13384875

I know two fellows who are radiologists making well over $200k, one actually makes $400k a year, and they are both republicans. I wonder how they will feel when their job is outsourced to India.

I know mistakes happen here in the US system but how will a patient feel if their x-ray is read incorrectly by someone who doesn't even live in the same country as the patient? How will malpractice be handled?

[PROGRESSIVE1]

1. A freind of my mother's who happens to be a radiologist and.....

a REPUBLICAN (socially moderate and opposed Bush's illegal war, but
supports FREE TRADE, tax cuts and market deregulation) is worried that her job will be outsourced soon. And get this, she is still going to vote for Bush next year! Why????

A nice lady by any standards, but why support Bush????

[bleedingheart]

2. I don't know but imagine the thoughts of the young radiology resident

who just spent $200k on med school only to find out that you are going to have to go back and find another specialty.

The big kick in the head is that the patients will see no drop in their costs so this is just to increase the profits of the insurance companies and the outfits that are creating this new outsourcing environment...

[eleny]

3. People are more attached to their vote than to reality

Denial

[PVnRT]

4. Not that

It's all about money - the more money you get, the less most people want to pay taxes, even though you can more easily afford it.

[guitar man]

9. A "Broken Glass" Republican

I have heard this term used to describe Republican voters who would "crawl over broken glass" to vote Republican no matter what the Republicans had done wrong.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

13. Physicians with this kind of income vote Repub

because they take a short term view. If they are making 400K or whatever they want their tax cut NOW while the getting's good. If they are making this money they probably have less uninsured and old patients than docs in other areas so the coverage issues don't affect them... yet...

Also, Bush and the Repubs tend to be on the AMA lobby side of most issues like limiting malpractice awards (similar to the Republican positions favoring coroporations against litigation), whereas Democrats are usually allied with the trial lawyer side of the house (Edwards being a case in point).

As a physician I often feel that I am in a sense against my own short term economic self intere$t by voting for Democratic candidates (although all the Republican docs I work with made out like bandits under Clinton so I'm not sure why most of them hate him so much). But it's too important to get rid of the shrub for so many reasons. In a way I'm like the blue collar joes who I can't understand voting for Bush when all his tax cuts etc. favor people like me. The difference is that I'll probably have a job either way and at least be doing OK.

In the long run though physicians don't benefit if no one has a job, health care coverage, or both...

[Hammie]

5. This is a good thing right?

Just like getting drugs from Canada. If another country can supply the health care cheaper, we should take advantage of it.

[bleedingheart]

6. Do you really think your healthcare costs will go down now because of

this?
In spite of the supposed savings I haven't seen anything get any cheaper. I pay more for my healthcare now than I ever did and my copays and prescription costs have also gone up in spite of the fact that I pay even more out of pocket for the healthcare coverage..that is supposed to be providing prescription benefits..etc

[Malva Zebrina]

7. It's all about money and keeping all the money you earn, whether it be

way out of proportion or not, for yourself.

It is every man for him/herself. It is a world where competition is king. It is a worlde where too many little kids are fed drugs in order to make it in school. It is a world where too much emphasis has been put on "things" and "position" and "wealth"

This is NOT what life is about, imo. It is about more than things, or money, or fame or position or ego. It is about living, mostly and it is about living a life that is examined.

I think people, on the whole, have lost their spiritual sense of being. :shrug:

[Ilsa]

8. Last year someone on DU posted a story about

a computer technician or data entry clerk threatening to publish a California hospital's private patient records on the internet because the subcontractor of the subcontractor of the contractor hadn't bothered to pay them.

Do we really want our private medical records going everywhere?

[ulysses]

10. it's the new triangulation!

Health care vs. globalization.

[Malva Zebrina]

11. 200,000 sseems an awful lot to me

is a radiologist an MD? How does it happen that their salary is so high?

Is it possible that a person who is analyzing X-rays does not need to have such a salary? How does one earn such a large salary? Goes to medical school?

Today,my husband, who is seventy, and who had to take a janatorial position cleaning the toilets in the local supermarket for four hours a day because we had a real bad problem with our furnace here and did not have enough money to pay the bill for the repair of our broken furnace (here in the frozen north) was cut down from four hours a day to three hours a day. He was told that the company could not make the payroll. :shrug:

If anyone needs a few hints on how two people can live on 13,000 dollars a year, please contact me--I am an expert at the basics of survival. :-) And it is NOT hard.


It is best at this point, to throw caution to the wind. If I have to die a few years earlier than if I had invested almost the whole of my SS money on medications, then I would rather go for the crazy, wanton life instead of being locked into prescriptions and doctor visits as a way of life. That is NOT, to me, a way of life at all.

So, here I am--foot loose and fancy free! LOL.

Life is worth living--live it and enjoy every bit of it, even the anxious moments and do not forget to reflect and meditate about it. It does not take a whole lot of money in order to do so. It is all in the mind and the attitude.

[CrownPrinceBandar]

14. That's the $64,000 (or $200,000) question...

I hat to say that they are overpaid, because they have to go through many years of school, are legally responsible for the care they give and in many places cannot get malpractice insurance. They should be well compensated.

However, the degree to which they are compensated is a function of the prestige we have put on doctors in our society. Doctors get paid what they do because we as a society allow it. Generally, people view doctors with some mysticism, the miraculous saver of lives. And given that persona, some feel justified paying doctors as much as they do.

Thats fine. Pay them $200,000. Thats cool with me as long as I can get health care employed or not, pre-existing condition or not, my age not an issue. Health care is a right. To have it given to only those with the money to pay for high price of treatments is inhumane.

Please don't mistake my critique as a slam on doctors. They do a hard job and many demands are made on them, but their high salaries are a contributing factor (not the only one) to the high price of health care. As a country, we need a sensible health care solution.

Foamdad

[SharonAnn]

15. Yes, they're MDs and have at least 4 years of residency, I

believe. It might be more.

They spend a lot of years in school, very expensive schools and then many years in residency training.

[CrownPrinceBandar]

12. Thankfully, my Mom...

is only a few years from retiring. She's been a Rad Tech for 30+ years and I believe that her job would go before the doctors.