politics & job scarcity

Specialties CRNA

Published

Okay, I've got two issues I'm wondering about---

Five years from now, does anyone have any insight/information to support the notion that there could actually be a glut of CRNA's on the market? Or, let's say, if all the schools doubled their entering classes this year, would there still be a shortage i five years? I've not seen any statistics on this. Perhaps those of you in class may have heard something from an instructor?

Secondly, are there any worries that legislation could drastically change/lower pay? This interest to do so rooted in the healthcare mess we are in. I would reference what happened to the home health care nursing as a result of changes in gov. reimbursement that occurred a few years ago, which made HH nursing go from somewhat rewarding in pay to not at all.

Any ideas or insights would be interesting to hear about. THANKS!

Dave

I will say this. I admire the courage you have in your convictions. It's easy for a Barbara Striesand to be liberal, and advocate a plethora of programs that will raise taxes. Even if she suddenly found herself paying 60% taxes on all her income, I would imagine that that would have absolutely no impact on her lifestyle.

It is much harder for folks like you and me, who are trying to give our families the best we can. Jumping our taxes to 50% would decrease our lifestyle by at least two orders of magnitude. It speaks highly of your courage when you know that, and are still willing to move on you convictions.

Kevin McHugh

To Kevin and others, I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. Obviously judging by the elections Tuesday, health care for the needy will have to wait.

Specializes in Nurse Anesthetist.

Phew!

While I admire Dave's convictions also and realize he brings up some very good points why a wealthy society should provide health care for everyone. However, after working in a inner city county hospital which provides healthcare for free for anyone who can't afford it or is willing to lie and claim they can't afford it; I can tell you first hand that the abuse is staggering. I have seen many good hearted liberal doctors and nurses go into this environment with a liberal perspective and after a short period totally change their perspective because of the abuse of the system. Prime example, people still using the ER as a clinic when we make follow up appointmments in the clinic system for them. A general attitude by many that the system owes them; I can't tell you how many people I have seen pull up in nice cars, clothes, and cell phones who tell me they can't afford medical insurance. Some of these people are young healthy and single and could easily afford insurance if it were a priority and we did not offer free health care to them. The bottem line, our free market system is not perfect, but it is better than any socialist or communist system I am aware of, those systems look great in theory, such as communism, but do not work well in real world application because in does not take into account greed and dishonesty. Where as the free market system allows for people to compete for a better lifestyle and also accepts the fact that we will never all be on same financial level. And that is something many people can't or wont accept. It is also another reason why the free market system is a more honest system even though at times it may not seem fair. Also anyone who has studied recent history, post industial revolution, can see that the free market system has offered a better way of life to the masses than the other socialist systems. Therefore it makes more sense to improve on our current healthcare system than to adopt a socialist format.

Specializes in Nurse Anesthetist.

good job Anthony. Well said.

2 Atta-boyees for Anthony!

The "real world experience" is that socialism never has, and never will work. It may last for a while, but it gradually ROBS the incentive of the average person working to excel. Why work so hard to succeed when you'll only be taxed to death if you ever "make it big"?

My little side note - I think "fair taxation" is when EVERYONE pays the EXACT SAME RATE - as in percentage! I know the envious "pick the pockets of the rich" crowd will disagree with that one - it's my opinion and I've held it even when very poor.

One more question for anyone still reading this thread:

If it is "required" to give/supply the "poor, downtrodden crackhead" freezing his/her toes off on the street health care - merely because "they are HUMAN!!!" Please tell me then at what point do we (as individuals and a nation) stop our great giveaway? Should we clothe, feed, and provide healthcare for all of Mexico? How about working our way down to Panama? Those folks around the "Hollywood" part of Panama are very poor - I know, I used to live in Panama! All the way to Chile? How about Africa? Parts of that country are really missing out on the "high life"?? Where do you folks stop? We could bankrupt the country and give all of our EARNED wealth away to the "poor & downtrodden" around the globe, but it would never be enough.

I think that kind of compassion is fantastic - just don't force me to do your bidding, OK? I grew up on the "mission field" where MY inheritance was spent on other people making incredible improvements in their lives - both spiritual and PHYSICAL! If you want to pontificate on the virtues of that kind of "giving" - please do it yourself and in a wonderful manner, but I disagree it is your "right" to essentially legislate picking my pocket to do it.

Solution: Someone kept asking for "show me the SOLUTION!!!" Wish I had ALL the answers but I believe there are good opportunities for people w/o insurance to seek and find much or most medical help.

1 - Call & ask in advance about payment options and tell them you don't have insurance - most places will work with you. I've done it in the past.

2 - There is something called Medicaid - when you really don't have anything else, isn't this available? In Tennessee the TennCare program was created to improve upon Medicaid....

3 - There are a number of places and groups around the country that will take people for free. No, I don't have a list, but when my child was needing one of her open heart surgeries, I remember someone telling me about St. Jude's and how they would "work with us" if $$$ was a problem. There were other opportunities like that.

4 - When YOU'RE OUT and practicing:

You (and I) will have an opportunity to "give something back" to those who are truly without. I have firm plans on doing so. I am already in contact with some people who do this kind of thing and I plan to REGULARLY schedule time to do this kind of thing each and every year. Anyone else thought of this??

Enough for now -

I have definite plans of doing charity work around the world. I have been on missions trips and they are life-changing and rewarding for all involved (the missionary and the one being ministered to). I have a heart for giving the talent God gave to me back to him in the form of helping the "least of these".

With this said, I do not believe it is the place of the government to instill socialized medicine to "help the poor". I have been one of the poor and it is not a pleasant place to be. But I utilized Pell grants in the way they are designed to be used and worked my butt of to get through nursing school and then worked through the BSN program. I am fortunate now to have a husband to support us through CRNA school along with student loans. The use of government aid can be a very good thing, but it is abused too much. Being mentally ill or sick is one thing, but just being poor and not having the same "opportunities" does not constitute staying in the same lifestyle. By many standards, I did not have the opportunity to go to college and become as successful as I am now, but I did it anyway. And it has been hard. So I don't buy the "less opportunity" bit. It can be done. And we have no incentive for working so hard to get out of an oppressed lifestyle if the government keeps increasing the handouts. I liked the quote here earlier that said "I am not for handouts, but I am for a hand UP"

....my 2 cents

Could not agree more!!!

Dito AL BUG

Nicely put Al Bug. I am all for helping those who are trying to help themselves. But, you must want to help yourself!

2 things:

1) job scarcity??? don't make me laugh... anesthesia will have more than enough jobs around at least until 2015... with the growing population there will be more surgeries and more critically ill patients. anybody studing for anesthesia right now, has nothing to worry about...

2) politics... etc... and health insurance for the poor...

I really don't think health coverage should be seen as a right... and it should definitely not swallow more tax dollars. The federal and state governments shell out sooo much money to cover medicare and medicaid patients... the interesting thing is that 85% of medicare dollars are spent on the last 30 days of life in the elderly. If it were according to me, physician/committees would decide on medical futility (like they do in central europe) and declare people DNR... thus freeing up all those dollars that go towards keeping corpses alive in the ICUs, and instead spend that on providing better health care access....

A lot of people complain about how difficult it is to get health care coverage on minimum wage --- this may outrage a few, but i think that is total baloney. People have all of their priorities wrong, i truly most people can afford most, if not all, basic medical insurance plans - but instead they would rather have a big screen TV, a DVD player, a good sound system, a nice car, nice clothes, etc... it just goes to show where most priorites lay. Health seems to be an afterthought, and then those same people then complain that their plan doesn't give them everything they want... what do they expect? when you buy a $10,000 dollar car will it come with everything you want... NO

Now, I do believe all children should be covered to a certain extent, because they can't and shouldn't be held responsible for their parents poor decisions... Now for all those who want socialized medicine, you can go to canada or england where it takes 6 months to schedule a cholecystectomy or 8 to 9 months to get an MRI.

go to a socialized system the exact type of medical decisions that Tenesma is referenceing WILL be made. Now, Tenesma cites an extreme that most would agree with (having a DNR guideline for terminally ill patients in the last days of their lives). However, other similiar situations might cause even those of you who are ardent socialists to give pause. Right now there is medical rationing going on in the UK and Canada which is almost right out of Huxley's "Brave New World". In Denmark it is not uncommon for physicians to "assist" the terminally ill to their final destination. One wonders if subtle pressure is not placed on those who are a medical burden to "do the right thing".

I do think that medical insurence should be more "easily" availible. When my wife and I had a mortgage company I found it impossible to purchase and individual policy for us do to my weight (240 pounds at six feet of height) at ANY price. What's more I tried to find a doctor who would take me "self pay" without much success (I called around ten doctors and finally ended up going to the ER for an infected big toe). Now at the time I had perfect credit, and was earning about 120K in NET income. It didn't matter, the physicians I talked with said that they didn't take on new patients who didn't have insurance. Keep in mind that with a GROUP plan (this is what most people have through their employers), I would be accepted with Stage IV glioblastoma into their insurance program. Obviously, weighting 240 at age thirty is not healthy, but its also not ACUTELY terminal (espcially since I don't drink, or smoke and eat an Ornish/Pritikin type diet 95% of the time).

I truly believe that a big part of the problem with health care inflation can be attributed to the fact that most of us DON'T directly pay for the medical costs which we incur. Whether, it is through an employer (as with most group policies) or via the government (as in Medicare, and Medicaid) when we don't pay for something directly we tend to care less about it's price. As a result the vendor (or health care provider) has less pressure upon them to be maximally efficient and control costs. Thus, I would predict that if employers and the government started routinely providing medical insurance for pets that it woud only be a matter of time before vetrinary medicine bills were rising at a rate of several times the overall rate of inflation.

I think one of the answers lies in focusing on catastrophic coverage that only kicks in after a considerable deductable. This can be encouraged via "medical savings accounts" and would be even more strongly facilitated if those accounts had even stronger tax advantages. In addition, I believe that individuals should more easily be able to access "group plans" via professional, and personal associations. Thus, I think that members of say the United Methodist Church should be able to negociate on the same basis with insurance providers as can Ford, or Eli Lilly.

For the poorest Americans I believe that private charities, foundations, and interests should maintain clinics that provide health care services to anyone and charge on a sliding scale basis afterwards. There is a place for government in supporting these institutions with additional monies so long as this support doesn't come with red tape that inflates the cost of providing these services exponentially. Americans are the most generous people on earth in terms of charity donations. I have no doubt that if these clinics are properly presented to the American people that they will receive considerable support. As a conservative I believe in helping people myself and NOT just passing the buck to some faceless government institution for the price of a higher tax to do the job for me. THAT's why I believe that the argument that conservatives don't care as much is simply not correct.

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