Health Care

[JrChurch]

We have been watching the "Obamacare" health care debacle unfold before our eyes.  Not much we can do about it, but it bothers me to think of the changes that will continue to come.  It is difficult to get doctors into the less desirable areas as it is.
This article addresses reasons for the prediction of shortages, but one thing I really do not understand is why medical schools do not admit more students.  My son is in his first year of med school and there are 105 in his class, but there were over 4,000 applicants.  The statistics are the same for the upcoming class in the fall.  My husband graduated from med school a few decades ago and the situation was similar.  I don't claim to be an economist, but it seems that supply and demand should have an affect on this equation. 

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/04/11/urgent-physician-shortage-predicted-within-a-decade/

 

[redhead]

There is a difference between "applicants" and "qualified applicants". I'm a high school teacher, and I can tell you that we graduate a lot of "college-ready" kids who don't even know how to read (seriously). I have a  student in pre-calculus right now who thinks she is going to college to be a doctor, and she can barely add or subtract. She will get into college because she is poor, Hispanic, and illegal. She will get tutoring and assistance all four years she is there. But can she get into medical school? Doubtful...

 

[aleshanee]

There is a difference between "applicants" and "qualified applicants". I'm a high school teacher, and I can tell you that we graduate a lot of "college-ready" kids who don't even know how to read (seriously). I have a  student in pre-calculus right now who thinks she is going to college to be a doctor, and she can barely add or subtract. She will get into college because she is poor, Hispanic, and illegal. She will get tutoring and assistance all four years she is there. But can she get into medical school? Doubtful...

how do you know she is illegal?........  ??? ......

 

[aleshanee]

We have been watching the "Obamacare" health care debacle unfold before our eyes.  Not much we can do about it, but it bothers me to think of the changes that will continue to come.  It is difficult to get doctors into the less desirable areas as it is.
This article addresses reasons for the prediction of shortages, but one thing I really do not understand is why medical schools do not admit more students.  My son is in his first year of med school and there are 105 in his class, but there were over 4,000 applicants.  The statistics are the same for the upcoming class in the fall.  My husband graduated from med school a few decades ago and the situation was similar.  I don't claim to be an economist, but it seems that supply and demand should have an affect on this equation. 

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/04/11/urgent-physician-shortage-predicted-within-a-decade/

hawaii already has a critical shortage of doctors in one very important field..... ... that of family practice or general practitioner...... ... before obama care even went into effect many of the more experienced doctors in family practice saw the writing on the wall ... closed their practices and took teaching jobs or went into research ......... ... many more are considering doing so now and the number of graduates coming out of medical school willing to take their place in a family practice can;t fill the void .... ... plus many of the doctors continuing to operate a family practice are over-saturated with patients and are refusing to take any more...... .......

so..... that leaves a lot of people who can;t find a personal doctor forced to use the emergency room or other emergency clinics for any and every medical issue they have...... whether emergent or not...... ....... and the emergency rooms are now so over-saturated with non emergency business that they can;t keep up....

whereas in the past only people with minor problems were occasionally left waiting for hours in an ER.... now even people with serious medical conditions are often left in waiting rooms until their condition becomes critical and the emergency room staff is forced to roll people on gurneys back out into the lobby or leave the side of other patients already in rooms and begin treatment on new arrivals that have deteriorated and become critical right there in the waiting room.......

a lot of people i know and am related to in the medical field said they saw this coming years ago - when the changes that obama care would bring about were announced..... ..... of course they were argued down by people like mr hall who declared everything they said to be "poppycock" and praised obama care as the best thing since elvis presley and fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches...... ....but then he and the other "elite" people who pushed obama care into reality are lucky.... none of them have to rely on it for their own health needs...... 

 

[redhead]

There is a difference between "applicants" and "qualified applicants". I'm a high school teacher, and I can tell you that we graduate a lot of "college-ready" kids who don't even know how to read (seriously). I have a  student in pre-calculus right now who thinks she is going to college to be a doctor, and she can barely add or subtract. She will get into college because she is poor, Hispanic, and illegal. She will get tutoring and assistance all four years she is there. But can she get into medical school? Doubtful...

She told me. We have discussed different paths to citizenship in class, so it is not uncommon for students to discuss their immigration/citizenship status.

how do you know she is illegal?........  ??? ......

 

[aleshanee]

There is a difference between "applicants" and "qualified applicants". I'm a high school teacher, and I can tell you that we graduate a lot of "college-ready" kids who don't even know how to read (seriously). I have a  student in pre-calculus right now who thinks she is going to college to be a doctor, and she can barely add or subtract. She will get into college because she is poor, Hispanic, and illegal. She will get tutoring and assistance all four years she is there. But can she get into medical school? Doubtful...

She told me. We have discussed different paths to citizenship in class, so it is not uncommon for students to discuss their immigration/citizenship status.

how do you know she is illegal?........  ??? ......

have you told her how you feel about her chances in college?..... ....does she know you feel it;s unfair that her racial heritage and financial status might get her into college ahead of other applicants that are more qualified?.......

it's been a decade since i enrolled in a college pre-med biology class.... but i don;t know how she can get into any pre-medical college program if what you say is true and she can barely spell and has only basic math skills...... ..... i had to pass an entrance exam qualifying with a minimum of english 100 and 2 years equivalent of algebra to get in......  and i don;t know if my racial heritage played any part or not.... but it shouldn;t have mattered since i had a 4.0 average up to that point any way......

the reason i ask about how you knew what her citizenship status was... is because on my first trip back to the u.s. mainland during my second year of college i was mistaken for an illegal alien and told to go back to mexico..... ..... yet in truth i had more right to be where i was than the pink skinned blue eyed redneck who yelled at me and told me to leave......... and i have never even been to mexico.....  ???

 

[JrChurch]

There is a difference between "applicants" and "qualified applicants". I'm a high school teacher, and I can tell you that we graduate a lot of "college-ready" kids who don't even know how to read (seriously). I have a  student in pre-calculus right now who thinks she is going to college to be a doctor, and she can barely add or subtract. She will get into college because she is poor, Hispanic, and illegal. She will get tutoring and assistance all four years she is there. But can she get into medical school? Doubtful...

If the information was correct the applicants were considered "qualified" because of stated GPA and MCAT minimums.

 

[sword]

There is a difference between "applicants" and "qualified applicants". I'm a high school teacher, and I can tell you that we graduate a lot of "college-ready" kids who don't even know how to read (seriously). I have a  student in pre-calculus right now who thinks she is going to college to be a doctor, and she can barely add or subtract. She will get into college because she is poor, Hispanic, and illegal. She will get tutoring and assistance all four years she is there. But can she get into medical school? Doubtful...

She told me. We have discussed different paths to citizenship in class, so it is not uncommon for students to discuss their immigration/citizenship status.

how do you know she is illegal?........  ??? ......

How could she be in a Pre-Calculas class and pass if she can barely do basic math.

Most pre-calc text in the U.S. have not been dumbed-down to that point.

Do you just pass your students to make yourself look good and let the med-schools sort them out.

Are you the problem or part of the solution.

 

[sword]

Experts admit the AMA and colleges limit the number of medical students admitted to carefully control the number of docs. The also admit as early as 2005 (see article from USA Today) that they were incorrect in their estamations of 165,000 surplus docs.
However once the looming shortage became apparent, these efforts were reversed. For example the American Association of Medical Colleges (AAMC) set the goal of increasing medical school enrollment by 30% from 2002 levels by 2015. Unfortunately they are already behind on this goal. Obama care has further complicated their numbers.
Less qualified people are applying to medical school and schools are struggling to increase their numbers. Medical schools can only teach a fixed number at any time unlike very large liberal arts classes.

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/health/2005-03-02-doctor-shortage_x.htm

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2015/03/03/u-s-faces-90000-doctor-shortage-by-2025-medical-school-association-warns/

 

[subllibrm]

The doctor shortage has been looming for decades. This is/was not caused by Obamacare.

Look at the AMA and the medical community as a nationwide co-op. They control the supply and demand so that the value of a certified doctor remains high. Let's face it, medicine is a business. Business is about making money. This is a result of trying to control "market share" and ds with any top-down market control effort they sometimes get their projections wrong.  It just takes longer to ramp up porduction of doctors than the hot selling new car, appliance or tech gizmo.

 

[Tarheel Baptist]

The doctor shortage has been looming for decades. This is/was not caused by Obamacare.

Look at the AMA and the medical community as a nationwide co-op. They control the supply and demand so that the value of a certified doctor remains high. Let's face it, medicine is a business. Business is about making money. This is a result of trying to control "market share" and ds with any top-down market control effort they sometimes get their projections wrong.  It just takes longer to ramp up porduction of doctors than the hot selling new car, appliance or tech gizmo.

True. What Obamacare has done is exacerbate the problem by pushing many doctors into retirement earlier than they had originally planned. Sadly, my doctor was one of those.

 

[FreeToBeMe]

How could she be in a Pre-Calculas class and pass if she can barely do basic math.

Most pre-calc text in the U.S. have not been dumbed-down to that point.

Do you just pass your students to make yourself look good and let the med-schools sort them out.

Are you the problem or part of the solution.

^^^^^^^^THIS^^^^^^^^

Also, does your school system encourage teachers to "pass" students based upon minority status?  Wouldn't surprise me a bit if they did. 

 

[aleshanee]

How could she be in a Pre-Calculas class and pass if she can barely do basic math.

Most pre-calc text in the U.S. have not been dumbed-down to that point.

Do you just pass your students to make yourself look good and let the med-schools sort them out.

Are you the problem or part of the solution.

^^^^^^^^THIS^^^^^^^^

Also, does your school system encourage teachers to "pass" students based upon minority status?  Wouldn't surprise me a bit if they did.

do you know of any schools that encourage teachers to "pass" students based on minority status?.....  ???

when your generation was in high school football players sometimes got passed based on their gridiron abilities...... .... some schools even encouraged teachers to do all they could to help football players that had college scouts looking at them pass their classes and remain eligible for a scholarship..... even it meant altering grades....

i was told by someone a few years ahead of your generation once that he witnessed a teacher offer a certain star football player in her remedial math class an A on future exams for every touchdown he made in the upcoming friday night game....

this was long before the no pass no play rules were implemented in schools.... but if that student had failed he was going to lose his chance at playing football in college .....

he went on to make 3 touchdowns in that game and went from failing math to passing it..... ... everybody from the school principal on down... especially the football coach ....applauded that teachers actions.....

 

[subllibrm]

My hometown high school changed the math grading to A-B-Fail.

The reason stated was to help students be realistic in choosing their math track. IOW don't take a class that is beyond your level of ability. Of course there were kids who took a lower level class to avoid any risk. And the school was able to crow about having nealry all A-B students in math (yes, there were somne who couldn't pass even the lowest level).

 

[FreeToBeMe]

My hometown high school changed the math grading to A-B-Fail.

The reason stated was to help students be realistic in choosing their math track. IOW don't take a class that is beyond your level of ability. Of course there were kids who took a lower level class to avoid any risk. And the school was able to crow about having nealry all A-B students in math (yes, there were somne who couldn't pass even the lowest level).

Yeah, we've got schools here in our neighboring county doing roughly the same thing.....so they can manipulate the outside perception of how well they are performing.  Meanwhile, the poor performing students are slipping through the cracks and into the world.

 

[praise_yeshua]

How could she be in a Pre-Calculas class and pass if she can barely do basic math.

Most pre-calc text in the U.S. have not been dumbed-down to that point.

Do you just pass your students to make yourself look good and let the med-schools sort them out.

Are you the problem or part of the solution.

^^^^^^^^THIS^^^^^^^^

Also, does your school system encourage teachers to "pass" students based upon minority status?  Wouldn't surprise me a bit if they did.

do you know of any schools that encourage teachers to "pass" students based on minority status?.....  ???

when your generation was in high school football players sometimes got passed based on their gridiron abilities...... .... some schools even encouraged teachers to do all they could to help football players that had college scouts looking at them pass their classes and remain eligible for a scholarship..... even it meant altering grades....

i was told by someone a few years ahead of your generation once that he witnessed a teacher offer a certain star football player in her remedial math class an A on future exams for every touchdown he made in the upcoming friday night game....

this was long before the no pass no play rules were implemented in schools.... but if that student had failed he was going to lose his chance at playing football in college .....

he went on to make 3 touchdowns in that game and went from failing math to passing it..... ... everybody from the school principal on down... especially the football coach ....applauded that teachers actions.....

He can't handle the facts. Its too offensive.

 

[aleshanee]

How could she be in a Pre-Calculas class and pass if she can barely do basic math.

Most pre-calc text in the U.S. have not been dumbed-down to that point.

Do you just pass your students to make yourself look good and let the med-schools sort them out.

Are you the problem or part of the solution.

^^^^^^^^THIS^^^^^^^^

Also, does your school system encourage teachers to "pass" students based upon minority status?  Wouldn't surprise me a bit if they did.

do you know of any schools that encourage teachers to "pass" students based on minority status?.....  ???

when your generation was in high school football players sometimes got passed based on their gridiron abilities...... .... some schools even encouraged teachers to do all they could to help football players that had college scouts looking at them pass their classes and remain eligible for a scholarship..... even it meant altering grades....

i was told by someone a few years ahead of your generation once that he witnessed a teacher offer a certain star football player in her remedial math class an A on future exams for every touchdown he made in the upcoming friday night game....

this was long before the no pass no play rules were implemented in schools.... but if that student had failed he was going to lose his chance at playing football in college .....

he went on to make 3 touchdowns in that game and went from failing math to passing it..... ... everybody from the school principal on down... especially the football coach ....applauded that teachers actions.....

He can't handle the facts. Its too offensive.

i;m guessing it;s one of two things..........

either he was one of those high school athletes himself in the 1970s.... who got pampered and passed through classes so he could continue to play.........

or.....

he was one of the nerds who sat in the back of the class...... jealous of those elite athletes..... too afraid to say anything about it then..... .... and too ashamed to admit it now........