birdog1960

the residency is at least 6 years. he was a 3rd year med student at the time. do the math. this was well before the cuts. if i'm not mistaken, all military docs and even VA docs are paid by the same entity, non?

operative word is "small"....and that was before parity for medicaid and medicare reimbursement for primary care. things are never quite as simple as people (especially conservatives) believe them to be.

perhaps we need more "free rides" to med school and less promise of future extremely high compensation.

he had a very good place with nasa. your cynicism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynicism_(contemporary) is showing again.

been fun to read the comments over the last few days from the sidelines. but i'll jump back in the game: believe it or not some folks go into medicine for the intellectual challenge, the desire to help people, a sense of purpose, a sense of accomplishment, a sense of fulfillment...intangibles. i taught a uva 3rd year med student (one among many) internal medicine a few years ago. he had a phd in astrophysics and was working for nasa prior to med school. probably the best student i ever had and he said med school was the most difficult test he'd been put through...then he finished a residency at a top training program in neurosurgery ( a much bigger challenge). he didn't do it for the money,, although i'm sure that promise helped push him through the many rough times and up all nights but this wasn't his primary motivation. favorite hobby was fly fishing which doesn't take much money but tales time (the opposite of what you get in neurosurg). on the other hand, i've had students contemplating residencies between anesthesia or pathology or derm or radiology..which have nothing in common except high pay. guess which students will likely make better doctors? i know who i'd pick to be my doctor. and docs in socialized systems are still in the top few percent of compensation generally. i don't anticipate a big problem. the folks choosing between finance, law or medicine may choose otherwise. those that really are drawn to medicine, even the unfulfilled astrophysicists, will likely stay the course. and there will be enough.

it's still a large minority. when there is only one payer, the choice becomes much different.

one small step towards single payer: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/29/us/detroit-looks-to-health-law-to-ease-costs.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&_r=0

wasn't your counterpoint thar race WAS a factor to my point that race was not a MAJOR factor in deciding the election? If not, what was your point? and how is it out of context to reply that the voters you mentioned were not at all decisive in the election and thus not a MAJOR factor? or was it that you just didn't like my response? just like la didn't like my distillation of his argument, yet made no substantive challenge to the actual logic. yall's browbeating me about context and logic is laughable.

not even close to enough votes to account for the margins of victory.

he's won twice. both times convincingly over multiple contenders. the quality of his competitors, the changing demographics of the country and obama's campaigning ablilites were all major factors. his race was not. he certainly didn't gain many conservative votes because of it. the liberal votes were always going to him. even if you propose that some of the moderate vote was influenced by his race (and i suspect nearly as many voted against him as for him based on race), his margins of victory were still too large to be accounted for by this alone.he won. you don't like it. you don't want it to happen again. it's easier to believe a liberal won't win again if you explain the last two electrions on race. too bad, easy is often not correct.

so in summation: i perceived that i lost a bid due to reverse discrimination.obama beat clinton. clinton is white and obama black. therefore, obama won because he is black.makes perfect sense...it's so obvious. why doesn't everyone think like that?

he was offered tenure track for full professorship multiple times. his contemporaries at the same level are now highly disguished lawyers. i'm thinking the equivalent of lead counsel for a fortune 500 company if you insist on quantifying only in those terms. perhaps, he doesn't care what many people consider important. maybe he's concerned with what he finds important. now that's something that i hold out little hope for you understanding.

i was thinking the very same thing about you and la. but then again you are conservatives. for the last sevral national election cycles, self flagellation seems quite popular in that group.

it's about achievement. seems that only counts with you all if it's accomplished in business. i fundamentally disagree and expect that he likely could achieve similar results in the business world (despite what you may believe, academia at this level is often cutthroat and very competitive) once again going nowhere fast here...

so what did you really mean when you said "but if he was white"? did you really mean "but what if he were purple"? i thought not. you meant what you wrote.yeah, intellectuals are a waste of space. case in point, the ones in the picture i linked to that worked on the manhattan project. self important pompous asses...who needs em! see the UC Law statement. again, that's distinguished enough to impress me. not surprised if it doesn't impress you.http://www.factcheck.org/2008/03/obama-a-constitutional-law-professor/

ah, so there we have it... who is being envious now? and is the corollary that if you were black then you would be as successful as he? you've just illustrated what most have long ago accepted: much of the anger against obama is race inspired. btw, i gather you don't know much about academic heirarchy. he had a very desirable position. probably not to you, but thank goodness, not everyone values the same things.

he was teaching constitutional law to some of the brightest law students in the country at a top law school. might not be impressive to you, but it is to many others. few would consider such a position an outright failure except perhaps a few that post here regularly. money is not the only measure of success. it's just easily measured. and as i said, he's other accomplishments make it likely he could have succeeded by this measure as well.

but he isn't, is he. and he's not likely to.

well he certainly wouldn't be a copier boy in the private sector. and , if focusing all his considerable energy on wealth accumulation, he'd likely make more. a local congressman who lost a reelction bid was offered a 7 figure salary (i'm told by a good source) by a cable co (to his credit, he didn't take it). what do you think an ex senator or prez is worth to companies like this? he could likely have multiple part time positions and seats on boards paying even more.

he was a senator (i'm assuming you're asking how he could do it before he became prez since that question is ridiculous if you meant now). plenty of businesses want ex senators in their firm, on their board, etc. presidents at prestigious universities often make multiples of the president of the country's salary. he'd probably land such a job in no time. how does newt gingrich make his money, now? and even without pulling political strings, he's a very clever fellow with a strong academic pedigree...if wealth building was his primary goal, i'd bet on him to do it.

absolute bs...he could be making multiples of his current salary in the private sector, not to mention his wife's additional income, now unrealized. ivy league lawyers are not generally known to go wanting, except by choice.

thanks for your concern, but save it ...i'll take my chances. for cost savings to occur in any proposed model, primary care needs to be utilized more and specialty care less. even the bean counters in big private insurance have finally realized this. doesn't mean i'll see a big compensation increase necessarily but a big cut isn't very likely in any model. so, given that (or even without accepting that premise), i support a model that provides basic care to as many of the citizenry as possible. in that model, worst case, i'm overworked. in the best case, many more people receive decent care, and those two options are not mutually exclusive. best or worst, i'm ok with it. and if you're somehow right, i kinda like roller coasters, especially when flat land is so unsatisfactory.

it's amazing that so many people are already nostalgiac for "the good old days" of health insurasnce. firstly, they are not and have not been good. outright denials are extremely common for care few clinicians would see as unnecessary. costs for nonpreferred drugs are punative (as i feel they should be). red tape is purposfully thick to avoid rerquesting or receiving exclusions. and people are refused insurance for preexisting conditions or priced out of eligiblility leaving 1/5 of the country uninsured. on top of that, private insurers have failed miserably at their repeated attemptsd to reign in costs. just awesome... what a great system!!! but as soon as gov't is seen as doing any of these long ignored and practiced sins (excluding preexisting conditions which have been legislated out), all hell breaks lose and the evil gov't is trying to ration care. drop the double standards and many may well be veys happy with the impending changes.

at least paul gets that republicans need to be more diverse and "look like america" in order to compete in national elections. unfortunately (or rather, fortunately?), his policies and voting record will never likely lead to that.

didn't claim a direct comparison. isaid this is how it's supposed to work and that many new yorkers woulld likely be pleased. i don't see anything presented that refutes those statements.