Insight into being a Doctor in America

I found this article to be fascinating. The story it tells is very analogous to the story of teachers in America. They receive half of what their counterparts in Australia or Canada receive, deliver worse results, yet the service costs twice as much.

I'm not sure how anyone can read this story and not realize we have a real problem.

 

Running a website for rhesus negative people, I constantly run into this subject matter where hospitals and doctors screw things up. It seems the hospitals always win, the money is being generated, but nobody gets paid well. Take blood donations for example: In the U.S., it is against the law to pay for donations, but there is always a blood shortage for O negatives especially.

Why is it against the law? Well, for one, people say, if there are payments done, then drug addicts will come. It's true, they will try, but the blood test can easily filter out the bad candidates and a list of the good ones would ensure regular donations.

 

Being the Southern part of SA, and wages like that, I suspect that's a government subsidised position.

We have universal health care and they're mainly public health systems here.

The Liberal Party keeps destroying it and the Labor Party keeps fixing it. If the Libs get their way we'll be like you guys in no time. Everything will go private.

When Labor got in last time they splashed round billions to fix it, we in Bendigo had a shortage of doctors (all doctors had their patients lists full) nobody was seeing new people etc. so you had to travel 100+ kms if you didn't already have one (you still had hospital emergency you could go to for serious stuff), but now have about 20 new doctors and health centres since Labor got in in 2007. New hospital being built at the moment and things look like they're back on track, mostly.

 

@Bushranger: Your post would be a lot easier to respond to if it didn't just make broad sweeping left vs right allegations. Aside from a lack of supporting evidence in your post, such issues are rarely so simple. Sure sometimes the causes result in a break along party lines because of entrenched interests, but that usually has nothing to do with principle and everything to do with profits.

BTW, doctor's pay is Heavily subsidized in the US as well. Pay, as the article points out, is mostly driven off of what Medicare will pay (Government health care), and Medicare pays dramatically more to doctors working in less desirable places to live. I know this because I have a friend who is a rural doctor, who chose to be one based on those pay tables. The pay issues seem to surround individual doctors running a private practice, who make almost nothing (considering their education), vs doctors working at hospitals, many of whom profit share from the hospital and make 7 digit incomes.

Between mandatory care for those who can't pay, a low bar of entry for malpractice litigation, and open borders, urgent care facilities in the US find it nearly impossible to stay open. Doctors who want to make money in the US specialize and work either in hospitals while profit sharing, or work in surgical centers that do not take walk ins, only scheduled surgeries. Primary care physicians are forced into creating patient factories, where their large staffs do all the tremendous amount of regulatory paperwork processing, and patients are stacked in like cord wood. Doctors practically sprint from patient to patient, giving each about 5 minutes of their time, allowing them to earn enough from the Medicare(government) driven pricing model to live a modest middle class lifestyle after a decade of post highschool education.

 

It's right Vs right here atm. They're both very similar. One likes spending money on poor people, the other spends it on rich people. That's the only real difference. Our money still gets spent. Both still owned by lobbyists of the right.

Having good health is THE most important thing in life imho. If I was in charge, the health budget would far outweigh my defense budget.

Didn't Obama try to do something about fixing it but both Dems and Repubs made it too hard for him?

 

I'm confused. I point out that left vs right and party identification politics doesn't speak to the nature of these problems, and you respond by posting a political compass chart based on how the chart's creator views the political parties? Does this chart, in your mind, somehow make party affiliation more relevant to the issues surrounding healthcare? From where I sit, I don't see a connection at all.

By the way, any chart that puts the greens at 20% left of center, while every other party is placed to the extreme borders was obviously drafted by a partisan with his head up his ass. Not that it has anything to do with the topic at hand.

Obama got his healthcare legislation through. His signature legislation actually exacerbates the problems we are describing, which is one of the reasons less than 40% of the American public support it to this very day.

 

I've never heard anyone say it's against the law. In fact, blood services are always publicly advertising to pay for donations. I've had a few friends that make regular part-time money donating.

 

You're right in the sense it has nothing to do with the topic. However it was you who brought it up.

Your opening line was "@Bushranger: Your post would be a lot easier to respond to if it didn't just make broad sweeping left vs right allegations."

You claimed my first post was a left vs right. I pointed out it was not a left vs right argument, and I backed that up with evidence from politicalcompass.org, a reputable site with nothing to lose with the truth.

Greens are the only left leaning Party we have here. It's crazy that they are the Party closest to Centre, but the right just keeps going further right.

Back on topic.

Did Mr Obama get his whole package through or just the bits the congress agreed with? I thought it was the latter.
How often does a half/third implementation of a complete overall plan work like it was complete?

 

It was 100% of what Obama wanted. 2000 pages worth. They had no resistance since they controlled the branches of government needed to pass the law.


Obamacare will only make our situation worse. Not because government healthcare is a terrible thing, but because it just adds another layer to a broken system.


If they wanted to do it right, they would get rid of Medicare, Medicaid, VA, Military health, etc. and just create one public insurance plan for everyone. Pretty much what Canada does. Health care services remain private, health insurance is public. That way the government controls prices, keeping them low.


I've just convinced myself that government insurance isn't such a bad thing. It seems that the US spends much more on health insurance each year than any other country, yet more people are uninsured and the costs here remain high.

Health care costs are not really that bad if you get insurance through an employer (usually). But that requires people to work full-time at a level above Mcdonalds. For example, I pay $700 a year for health insurance.

The biggest problem with the US (and world for that matter) is that we are so unhealthy. The US is literally eating itself to death and debt. Kids know what a happy meal is before they know what spinach or lettuce is. On top of our terrible processed foods, salt, fat, sugar, and carbs, we sit on our couches watching tv, or surfing the internet more. Life requires less physical motion.

Over the last year I have realized that processed foods are a disaster. I was always overweight even up through high school. I slimmed down my senior year of high school and have pretty much remained a normal weight. But that really isn't enough. I recently started trying to eat "clean". Meaning limit processed foods. Only eat things that are in a natural state (or as close as possible). There are some exceptions and loopholes, for example instead of sugar I use artificial sweetener that has 0 calories. I eat lean meat like fish, turkey, and chicken. I don't eat bread. Only skim milk (i cannot live without milk!). Sugar is absolutely evil and off-limits. Filtering your foods and eating only "clean" products is one way you pretty much cannot ever be fat. You get full really fast eating foods that have very little calories. You get all the vitamins and nutrients. You aren't clogged up with fats and carbs. Your energy remains solid and steady throughout the day thanks to eliminating sugar. You start to taste things like never before. Your mood is better all the time.

Basically I have managed to become convinced that processed foods are the reason for our decline in health. Some would argue that before processed foods became mainstream (1920+) our life spans were shorter. This was due to safety, medical practices, and our understanding (lack) of our bodies, not because of the food. This will prove itself when life spans start declining because of the obesity and sugar epidemic.

 

It varies from state to state. My point is, if universal donors were to receive 200 USD per blood donation, there would be no shortage and it would be a small amount compared to the overall cost of a blood transfusion.

 

I don't know anything about politicalcompass.org. PolitiFact.org, a site supposedly focused on truth, is nothing but a branch of the tampa bay times, a left wing rag out of Florida. They provide some of the most left wing skewed hackery on the face of the planet. Just because you own a domain name that sounds non-partisan does not mean you are a non-partisan.

I personally like the fact politicalcompass.org plots views against two axis, instead of a simple "right to left" orientation, but consider this. Your country, socialized healthcare and all, has every major political party with influence in the high upper right corner (Statist/Conservative). The greens have almost no say and are your only (slightly) left of center influence, yet you have socialized healthcare and a myriad of other fairly hard left views on government? Yah, that compass is broke.

Furthermore, and specifically to my point, you are trying to tell me the liberals keep trying to break what the labor has fixed in your healthcare system, yet looking at your political compass, they are both parties of the authoritarian right, with very little difference from a political perspective. If that is the case, and your statement was true, the liberals must be "breaking" your healthcare system because they hate Australians, not because of some ideological difference.

Or perhaps have a look at this chart:


Do you really believe Mitt Romney and Barack Obama were practically the identical candidate, ESPECIALLY when it comes to Federalized health care?

Notice how this chart has Sarah Palin to the left of Barack Obama's 2012 chart?


Notice how there are never any candidates in the upper left or lower right quadrants? Notice how there are never any candidates in the left most column at all?

Anyway, enough analysis of a site that clearly has it's own, sometimes conflicting, biases. I like the charting methodology, but I am sick to death of people passing along their "unbiased" opinion as fact. And as I stated earlier, all of this has almost nothing to do with healthcare in America.

Single payer. I suspect it was the goal of ObamaCare to be so bad, so expensive, and so horrible, that people would look at single payer as the only way out.

I personally don't mind considering single payer, but I detest the way we are goaded like cattle with mindless generalities rather than focusing on facts, issues, and problems. Our healthcare problems are multifactorial, and in my opinion, insurance is only one of those factors. Frivolous lawsuits, defensive medicine, and insurance fraud are others.

I would say looking at other countries that do better (every other country), identify the elements of those systems that would not fail in the states due to our demography or laws, and do a sweeping overhaul. Of course that would take having a strong leader in the oval office, not Mr. Milk Toast who passed ObamaCare only by bribing members of his own party with taxpayer dollars.

 

Each political party here has factions, both LNP & ALP have a left and right faction. The right faction currently have control of the Labor Party (Gillard is centre/right leaning right - Rudd was centre/right leaning left) which is why the dot's closer to the right than expected. The dot (in the image of my post) would be closer to the left side if Rudd were still PM (but still on the right hand side of it). The compass is correct in that summation imho.

There is stuff in bottom right quadrant on one of your maps. Nothing top left I agree. Not too many authoritarian lefties I would guess, at least none of the people I know of from those maps.

Labor's (ALP) policies are geared toward the workers and poor, they have their constitution to abide by and the left wouldn't let the right faction sell off stuff based solely on Labor Party values. The ALP right factions do sell stuff (& sometimes arrange the benefits for themselves) when they can but our current hung parliament means the left will win everything everytime. PM Gillard can't sell anything even if she wanted to. I think she's an effective leader.

Liberals (LNP) are the self-confessed Party of the employer so they privatise as much as they can get away with. That's in their constitution so the left faction of the LNP can't argue against assett sales.

Back to healthcare.
We have medicare. That's a 1% levy off all our wages so it costs workers about $1000 per year. We never see it though as it's automatically deducted.

As for hospitals it's up to individual states to pay for health (and education). The Federal government often pitches in, offers incentives to clear out waiting lists and the like.

The LNP doesn't. All incentives are pushed towards private health insurance. Where Labor might provide $3b for health incentives the Liberals will cut that in half so they only provide $1.5b.

In my early years of DP I was awaiting an operation, listed as a cat 3 which means it is supposed to be done in 3 months, it took 5 years to get done. The current opposition leader was minister for health and he cutback funding big time (during a mining boom mind you). Ended up I was lost in the system three times. Hospital kept blaming the cutbacks. LNP were blaming states (because that is their job) but really they were happy for people to suffer whilst they worked it out.

They miraculously found my file and I got my operation about 8 months after Rudd got in (ALP) because the first thing he did was throw megabucks at the same system Howard and Abbott were just playing with.

 

There have been plenty in recent history. Stalin, Lenin, Ho Chi Minh, Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, Daniel Ortega, Pol Pot. These people all loved murdering and jailing people for dissenting views. Fidel and Che have strong supporters here in the states, with several sitting congressmen actually paying a visit to Fidel a few years back to pay him some respect.

I'm not familiar with your candidates, outside of Rudd, Gilard, and Howard, but I have no doubt there are more than a few hard left authoritarians in your government as well.

I accept the excuses you make for your politicalcompass.org as willful ignorance. Of course the greens are hard left. Of course the labor party is far more left than they give them credit for, just as Barrack Obama is far more left than they give him credit for, just as Sarah Palin is far more libertarian than they give her credit for. Again, the compass is simply a graphing tool. The people putting the numbers behind the names obviously have their own opinions.

That is every politician in office, regardless of political party. Don't be naive. You put the fox in charge of the hen house, he is going to eat chicken every last time.

Party of the employer. That's cute. There was a time, in the not too distant past, where self employment was wildly popular, with large companies occupying only 20% of the GDP. Party of the employer 20 years ago would be the party of the majority of Americans.

Use of phrases like "party of the employer" is a tactic really meant to divide people into employers and employees, pitting labor against capital. It is a false dichotomy. The so-called liberals in America are the biggest supporters of the corporate giants there are. Why? Because the corporate giants can be forced to hire union, small businesses don't. In America, the liberal wet dream seems to be having a few extremely large companies (lack of competition) who hire nothing but union workers (lack of creativity and motivation). In many ways, the Democrats are every bit as much the party of big business as Republicans. Any sensible person would classify the state socialists as hard left and authoritarian.

Why didn't you simply change insurance companies? Oh yah, no choice, no competition.

What an incredible testimony to the poor quality of socialized health care. Its no wonder people come from Canada and the UK to obtain life saving surgery in the US instead of literally dying while they wait.

What I don't understand is how you walk away from a story like the one you just told, a) advocating for such a system, and b)assigning blame for it all to one political party or another. What you describe is a typical story that is representative of nearly every last socialized health care system on the planet. Government is not efficient at anything it does, either in terms of time or money. Ever. Why? Because people are not incentivized to perform. They will be paid the same, and their will still have their job regardless of how good of a job they do for you, or how horrible of a job.

Personally, I find one redeeming factor for socialized medicine. It creates a thriving and affordable cash customer health care business. While all the poor folk wait in line, doctors who are worth a crap open up businesses that work on cash, refusing state insurance and their patients. The elimination of all that clutter and overhead, and the influx of cash competition actually truly drives the cost of quality health care down.

My kids were born in private hospitals in central america. World class facilities (one operated by a US company), with spacious hospital rooms, granite counter tops, US educated physicians, etc. Out the door cost for the Hospital and all associated services (excluding the doctor and anesthesiologist): $USD:732 cash. Yah, I think I can get into this socialized medicine thing. F' the poor.

 

I think you're mistaken to say it's illegal to get paid for donating blood in the US. Even to say it varies from state to state. Especially with plasma donation, you can find centers all across the US where you can be compensated. As an example - anyone can put in their zip code: http://www.pptaglobal.org/plasma/find.aspx

Where you might be getting confused then, is if you're speaking specifically of blood transfusion. For transfusions they stay away from paid donations, because statistically, they have a higher incident of unsafe blood. I think people not being compensated for donating, tend to be more truthful in answering behavioral risk factor screening questions. With testing blood, it makes it pretty safe. Although, there is a tiny chance you're still going to get something, even with tested blood. As an example of risks - emedicine.medscape.com/article/1389957-overview#aw2aab6b4

 

LoL @ Obamanation. Socialised medicine works fine until you cut funding. The delay was because LNP (Republicans) had control of the system.

I have had a similar op twice before and never ran into any of the crap I put up with last time. In and out in no time, which is why I put total blame on the Howard years for stuffing up our hospital system big time. I lived it.

Spin it all you like. It worked fantastically for so long until the political parties moved to the right and pulled public funds out of health.

Left Labor is much better system than even right-wing Labor imho. Though the delays are still much reduced under right-Labor than anytime under right-Liberals, but that's because the left keep the right in their place.

I have no idea where we would be without having the hung parliament.

The compass is correct. You just don't read right. I'll put that down to you being highly strung.

PS: Did you do the test for yourself?

 

The CNN story is an anecdote. A one time experience. It is not anything to generalize about medicine. In fact it takes the case of the exception, a rural doctor in a single practise. That is the exception by far, rather than the rule.

On top of that this doctor is older with less years to practise. From his perspective the investment, by a single guy in a process that might provide long term cost savings and some improved overall health care probably doesn't make sense.

If on the other hand he was 35 years old in the same environment it might make tremendous sense.

Last year I spoke with a GP from Mass. who by law was required to install electronic med records. This guy is part of a practise with other docs in a smaller metropolitan region (not Boston). This guy is also on the other side of the equation being an older doc rather than a younger doc.

He had no complaints about the cost of installing electronic records. OTOH he spoke about the amazing daunting problems he had in mastering the technology. His younger partners handled it more easily.

He sees the advantages. Med records get sent faster and more easily. There is no confusion on reading files. Its all readable. The processes are faster. He acknowledged sending these records definitely cut down on the probability of unnecessary tests being given to patients in other locales as it provides better more complete info.

Recently I spent time with another doc. In his early professional career he was a rural GP. He left after about 7-8 years.

He is now a specialist in a small community. He's a real dinasour. He has a single practise. He has a staff of up to 10 (I don't know how many are part time or full time). He bills in the $millions. Most of that money goes in and out quickly as cancer meds make up the bulk of that revenues and costs. Its enormous and simply grows all the time.

The latter guy accepts 15 different insurance programs. Cripes that is a technical, detailed overwhelming amount of differentiation. He has to have staff expert in each of these different programs. That has to be costly and ridiculously so.

The two docs both said they would welcome a single system of med costs coverage (ie govt health care) or something akin to that wherein all payment programs were the exact same. they both said that insurance companies do everything that the conservatives attack a single med system under govt control or oversight.

One is definitely a liberal. The other I don't know but the other is way way to the right on family values stuff such as fundamental religion and acceptance of gays. (at least he was at one point).

Both are closer tothe ends of their careers than the beginning. I'll say this about the cancer doc. He also specializes in blood work. When we met another guy referenced his issues with blood oriented illness and treatments. Immediately the specialist referenced very new research detailing acceptable levels for blood treatments. Stuff I know nothing about but the person with the issue immediately recognized and thanked the doc for that update as his treatment levels were different to date.

I'd trust that doc immediately. He is still studying, still up to date, still knowledgable.

There are huge issues with medicine, costs, lack of insurance, non acceptance of treatment or coverage, etc etc etc. I would not generalize on the experience of one single doc, albeit one in a rather rare circumstance.

There has been an issue with docs in rural areas for a long time. Its probably worse now. med education is crazy expensive and docs can't earn as much in rural areas as more urban areas. Its a disincentive for docs to move to rural areas and is probably getting worse.

 

@earlpearl: I agree, this doctor's story is a single story. The fact that it is a single story means it does not provide statistical evidence as to whether his story is common or uncommon. Neither does your anecdotal story. I suppose it will come as no surprise to you that I have several close friends who are doctors, closer to the older than the younger group of doctors, hard core conservatives to the last. Not one of them has a compensation package under 750k per year, and not one of them is a GP. I also doubt any one of them would have any trouble getting electronic record keeping operational. Age discrimination from an old guy? Really?

Conversely, I also have met a few of my wife's college friends who have become doctors (she is much younger than I), and to the last one of them, they say the profession sucks. One of them regrets not having become a fireman. I guess your age based anecdotal experiences run exactly opposite to mine. So much for anecdotal evidence. Lets go to common sense.

Medicare drives the rates insurance will pay. Fact. General practitioners can only charge so much to be the first point of contact for ailments. Fact. That leaves general practitioners in America as insurance processing specialists who cram as many patients into their day as they possibly can to make a reasonable wage. Fact.

This guy's claims of earnings are not the exception, they are the norm for GPs. It is why we already faced an extreme shortage of GPs prior to ObamaCare, and now, with 50 million newly insured people, it is just ridiculous. By the way, nobody is disputing the GP shortage, so please don't waste your time. Who the hell is going to bang out good grades in college, and 200k in medical school to make 150k a year, which is middle class by any definition. Its pathetic.

 

First of all, O-nation you are prone to both exaggeration, turning every conversation into a political attack and some unbelievable claims.

I have three cousins who are docs, all specialists, all who have done well and I've never heard one whit of a comment from them as to how much they have earned in any year spanning about 30 years of practice. Similarly I've known docs who were my friends and roommates from college. Not one has ever uttered how much he or she earns. Frankly I don't ask what anyone earns, and nobody asks me.

You must live in a different world where people meet one another and instantly the first thing out of their mouths is how much they've earned in the last year. That is certainly not the norm.

Of the two docs I referenced, one a GP and the other an oncologist/hematologist, both referenced they would accept medicare reimbursements across the board all the time. I have no idea what they earn. Both have great homes. They live fine. The oncologist/hematologist is the one with fifteen different insurance companies with whom he works and a staff of 10. He is also the doc who worked as a rural GP/MD for about 6-8 years, made money while doing it, has always watched his books. On that basis he is probably the last guy to state he could make it on medicare reimbursements if he didn't know it down pat after decades of paying attention to his income, expenses, and staffing.

I would acknowledge that there probably is a problem with generating GP's in this nation. I would expect a huge issue would be the combination of paying for one's own medical education and/or taking out loans, and the issue that GP's earn less than specialists.

Actually the issue of a shortage of GP's has been around for decades. Its not new.

The Colorado doc is both an anecdote and an exception of one. He is a rural GP, and he is older. As I stated up front, his is the situation that challenges spending lots of money for an investment in electronic records. He earns less, he has less years ahead of him to practice, and he won't be practicing medicine for a long period into the future. In his case, it sounds like a bad investment.

OTOH, the GP in Massachusetts never made the slightest uttering of the cost issues of installing an electronic records. He is probably more in the main stream being part of a practice and being able to spread the costs over a group of docs. Never discussed the issue with the single practice oncologist so I have no idea of his reaction.

I think the Time Magazine piece on medical costs was truly breathtaking. The US spends 20% of its GDP on health care costs. That is everything, private insurance, medical bills, medicare, medicaid, veterans care, etc.

20% of GDP is way way way more than that spent by any other comparable nation!!! (other sources analyze those costs at about 18% of GDP). (whichever its the highest in the comparable world).

Our health care costs per person are astronomical in comparison to the rest of the world: http://newshour.s3.amazonaws.com/ph...h_than_what_might_be_expected_1_slideshow.jpg

The US is spending over $8,000/person on health care, while the next 3 nations that are closest in spending per person are Norway Switzerland and the Netherlands are all at less than $5400/person. And all other nations drop beyond that.

Of the +$8,000/per person...more than 1/2 of it is paid for privately. Its not medicare, medicade, veterans health care, etc. Its paid for by insurance or out of pocket.

Doc's incomes are one issue, but the heavy money made by hospitals and by drug manufacturers are what really drives up costs:



Look at the costs of procedures in the US versus other nations. Its astronomical. Look at the comparative costs of drugs in the US versus other nations: Astronomical; and finally take a look at the operating profits of non profit hospitals. Truly enormous.

No wonder hospitals can afford to buy up private medical practices. Hospitals are flush with money. BTW: the not for profit hospitals aren't paying taxes on their profits. Lotta money going into the hospitals pockets and not going back out to the economy.

But to get back to the point on Docs.

These days new docs and recently graduated docs have this incredible hurdle as a result of enormous costs of med education. Simply enormous. Unprecedented and a crazy hurdle to overcome. If their undergraduate degrees were also paid by debt....they have a terrible long struggle. I don't deny it. OTOH, if they are specialists in urban areas....they are going to pay off that debt...far better and more capably than most folks.

I don't worry about docs incomes. Docs from other nations fight to become docs here because of the income opportunities....and there are growing numbers of docs in the US from all over the world. I find it astonishing. Its particularly great for the docs who were natives of a foreign land, and as with many of those nations...their med education was payed for by the state. That is great for them. They can earn more here...and they are not encumbered by the debt that American natives take on to go through med school.

Finally as to the so called doc you referenced that told you he'd rather be a fireman. I think that is outrageously funny. Doesn't he realize that if he were a public servant you would verbally rip him a new @sshole every other day for being a worthless lout of a public servant. LOL

 

So many words spent agreeing with me, Earlpearl.

Did we have a GP problem prior to ObamaCare? You and I agree, absolutely.

Did ObamaCare exacerbate the problem? Absolutely, though you neither confirmed nor denied it.

Do Hospitals and Drug companies suck up much of the extra money Americans pay out for healthcare? Absolutely.

Frankly, I really had to dig for areas we disagree. This is all I could come up with:

You still think the GP from my OP is an anomaly, an exception, yet you provided no evidence to testify to that fact, only citing the cost of regulations to his business vs the number of years he has remaining in his career. Does that ratio change his claim that he makes 150k a year, or speak to the fact that the average GP makes around that?

Do yourself a favor, since your friends and family find the subject of discussing income taboo. Go to http://www.glassdoor.com/index.htm, and type in "primary care physician" in the search bar. Then click on "Salaries". Information for the greater Los Angeles area shows up, with the average number $137,774, with 5 pages of crowd sourced data sitting behind it. I looked for Baltimore, but the east coast always lags when it comes to tech. No data.

Both of my friends are specialists, one anesthesiology, the other trauma specialist (ER). He's never said so, but I suspect the ER doc is a partner in the hospital, which goes a long way to both agreeing with you on where the money goes, and also towards explaining his compensation package.

Finally, regarding doctors vs. firemen, I just so happen to have a friend who is a fireman, through my wife. I mention that fact, because he is the reason the young doctor I know wishes he had become a fireman. The two grew up together. It is a rather interesting tale of two people. Sort of an inverse universe tale of the ant and the grasshopper.

While the doctor was busting his ass at near starvation levels trying to get into med school, the fireman was partying it up, until he got busted for a DUI. Without a license, he was unable to drive for a year, so he bailed off to a ski resort town, where he became a ski instructor for a few years. Dope smoking, partying every day, college lifestyle, no car required. Awesome.

One day, it dawned on the ski instructor that he would need to earn more than a ski instructor if he wanted to sire some children. Several years past the suspension of his drivers license, he returned to civilization to seek a job. After several applications at several different fire houses, he was finally accepted at one. He is now a full time fireman, only rarely having to go out on calls, making nearly what the doctor is making after taking benefits into account. Of course the fireman can retire after 20 years on CALPERS, our wonderful state funded benefits program, while the doctor will have to save for his own retirement.

Of the two, I am much closer friends with the fireman, a Democrat(no surprise there), than I am of the doctor (Disenchanted former Democrat making the migration to being a Republican). He makes no apologies, and I respect that. Hell, I don't hate any of the teachers in the teachers union. I completely understand their motivations. I would still fire every last one of them, if I had any say so whatsoever about how my tax dollars were spent.

Don't tell me the tale is anomalous. The data simply doesn't support it.

 

And you forgot the worst badass born of the socialist movement, Adolph Hitler.

Lest anyone forget, Righties want a weak central government so they can have weak corporate oversight and a hands-off approach to social behavior, while Lefties want a strong central government so they can have strong corporate oversight and strongly controlled social behavior.