I recently read an article on the CNN website that cited a recent survey of primary care physicians indicating that 49% of the physicians surveyed stated they would change careers if they had an alternative.  That’s a pretty big “if”, don’t you think?  Anyone that’s attempted to read the handwriting on that antibiotic prescription scribbled out by ole’ Saw Bones knows that the alternative employment won’t likely require good penmanship. Can you envision your internist greeting patrons as they walk into Wal-Mart? I don’t think so.

The top reason given for dissatisfaction with their profession was the red-tape involved with filing insurance paperwork and complying with government regulations.  I was a little puzzled. When was the last time you saw a doctor filling out the insurance forms?  Isn’t that always done by the accounting gal named Mildred?

A recent study by the National Health Service in the United Kingdom found that primary care physicians in the United States were the highest paid in the world.  Dr. Kildaire in the United States makes four times what his counterpart makes in Italy. Wearing scrubs in the U.S. pays twice as much as it does in France.  This is true even though the cost of  living in most U.S. cities is much less than in those European countries.  (The only city in the United State to make last year’s list of the top 50 most expensive cities in the world was New York, ranked 22nd.)

Physicians claim that their salaries represent only about 25% of the total cost of health care in the United States and that a 10% reduction in pay would only result in a 2.5% decrease in the cost of healthcare. That’s a a little bit like saying that because lung cancer only accounts for 7% of all deaths in the U.S., it’s a waste of time to discourage smoking.  This argument also fails to account for the fact that the much of the excessive cost  in other parts of the industry is paid to businesses, such as hospitals, owned in large part by physcians.

Both my parents are now deceased. But during their last years I was able to spend quite a bit of time in hospitals and clinics. I vividly remember my mother’s stay at Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas after a relatively minor procedure. After the operation she remained in the hospital with tubes stuck everywhere for several days despite no real need for supervised care. I remember thinking just how bad that enviroment was for recuperation.  I’ve since learned that many of the referring physicians own stakes in the hospitals where they perform surgeries and other tests and procedures.  They often have a stake in the business that does the lab work and the post-surgery rehab. This is especially true in these niche hospitals that perform speciality procedures such as orthopaedic and cardiac surgery.  I’ve heard all the arguments in favor of this arrangement, but in the final analysis, it’s conflict of interest. Would you want your defense attorney to profit from full occupancy in the county jail?

The bottom line is that physicians bear a share of the blame for rising health care costs and it’s time for those excesses, whether directly relating to physicians’ salaries or to manner in which they profit from other businesses responsible for those excesses, to be eliminated from the American health care industry.

My name is Ken, and that’s the way I see it.