“Unfortunately, (doctors who view gun violence as a public health epidemic) don’t see guns as the antibiotic. They see guns as the germ, and they think if you take away guns, you’ll get rid of the disease — and you and I both know that doesn’t work. I sleep better at night … knowing that a few people that are crazy are out there armed rather than thinking that the only people with weapons is an out-of-control government that knows no limitation on its power.” – Dr. Lee Heib in Speakers talk guns, immigration and gas tax at Capitol rally [at desmoinesregister.com]
Alas, we have yet to figure out how to reduce the jeopardy from either source:
– “. . . a few people that are crazy are out there armed . . . ”
– “. . . an out-of-control government that knows no limitation on its power.”
The solution to both is the same: unrestricted right of people to arm themselves.
Don’t forget that in a “disarmed” society, the criminals and the crazies would be armed in addition to the government…but I suppose there’s a wee bit of overlap there.
All violence is a symptom of something deeper. You would think that a doctor, who could potentially diagnose a number of illnesses that wouldn’t be apparent to most, would have no trouble seeing beneath the surface here and finding the real problem. In fact, when it’s drugs we are admonished by largely the same crowd about how “addiction is the disease”, and prison is not the answer. But not with “gun violence.” Here, we are told that guns are the disease, and prison must be the only treatment. I guess they don’t consider the environment in a bad neighborhood to be a factor. Maybe they should get a load of “world star hip hop,” if they would like to examine the health choices of these “patients.”
Doctors like me (military physician and a Pediatrician to boot) do not see guns as a Public Health issue. Some of us have strongly pleaded with AMA and the AAP to amend their stances, but alas they suffer from a real public health concern (Liberal Progressive Statism) and cannot be made to actually objectively look at the issue. The self-serving reason that I cancelled my AMA membership and am not long away from cancelling my AAP as they are staunch Hillary supporters. You cannot reason with the illogical emotion – based organizations that stand to profit from declaring something a health hazard as a way to infringe on your Right to possess it. I have tried from within and met resistance at every turn by even the most petty of functionaries.
Since when are doctors supposed to be concerned about public health? Thet’re more concerned about cash flow.
Clearly you know nothing about medicine. The average physician graduates with $250k in debt at normal consumer loan type interest rates to make about $200k per year on average. Keep in mind that this is after having spent 10-15 years (essentially losing their twenties) after college making about $13/hr despite their extensive education working something like 80 hours per week. When you combine this salary with loans, most are scraping by to support their families during these years and not saving for retirement as a result (during your highest return on investment years). Going into medicine is a huge sacrifice that never pays off financially, especially in some fields. Every single one of these people is super hard working and intelligent, traits which would likely earn them more money doing something else instead. Or you could contribute spouting nonsense… Your choice.
MDs make about $125K annually on average in the US so please excuse me if I have trouble picturing them as altruistic humanitarians.
$125k a year is around $10k a month. Before taxes.
You can expect about 25% of that to go to taxes, at least, depending on where you live. And remember if the doc has her own practice, she pays double the payroll tax.
You lose another $2000 a month to student loan repayment. So already we’re down to around $5500/month left.
How much does renting office space, paying a service for scheduling and billing? Again it depends on where you live and work, but in a metro area let’s call it another $2000.
So now you’re at $3500 net per month just so you can practice medicine. But wait! You still have to pay for malpractice insurance. That again will vary widely depending on the type of medicine and where you practice, but let’s call it $500/month.
Great – you’re left with $36k a year with which to raise a family, buy a home, save for retirement, etc. Have fun with that in a mice urban area where you’re making that $125k.
By the way, the numbers I used above? They come from talking with MD friends in San Jose, New York and Seattle, not out of whole cloth.
John, you’re failing to account for the fact that they’re in the business of making money and have to assign themselves a salary. So the $10k a month is their salary, their business expenses don’t come out of that $10k. So even accounting for their student loans and taxes they are still making more than enough money to get by. If your doctor friends are paying things like rent for office space and mal-practice insurance out of pocket then they suck at business.
Also, $36k a year, after taxes and expenses, is pretty damn good. Most of the country gets by on less and still pays taxes on it. So sorry that I’m not crying a river for them.
Having money and being a humanitarian aren’t mutually exclusive.
“MDs make about $125K annually on average in the US so please excuse me if I have trouble picturing them as altruistic humanitarians.”
If I made $125k a year, I doubt that I’d be much of an “altruistic humanitarian”. I wouldn’t be able to afford it.
Being self-employed, $125k per year would mean I pay 29k in taxes to the feds and the state. After 31k in mortgage, 12k in health insurance premiums, 11k for utilities, 10k for groceries, 4k in property taxes, and a bunch for homeowner’s and auto insurance, auto fuel, kids’ (3 of ’em, ages 9-13) activities, orthodontics and other medical/dental bills, clothes, home maintenance and repair, auto maintenance and repair, some birthday and Christmas gifts, and going out to dinner once a month or so, $125k a year would leave me about $350 a month for retirement savings, college savings, and vacations.
I haven’t been that cash poor since my early twenties, and I have no desire to experience that again.
I pity the MD (or any other profession) who makes only $125k a year, is trying to pay a mortgage and support a family, and has a bunch of student loan debt.
Those poor doctors living in $800,000 homes in the upper east side, they have it so rough.
I guess that we need to hold a telethon for doctors. I hear that Jerry Lewis is available to host it.
@mk10108
Medical school is generally considered to have the worst ROI for the tuition invested vs. an MBA, an engineering degree, or simply investing the $250-500k in tuition.
Medicine is not what you go into if you only want money and understand how money works.
None of the doctors that I know seem to be starving to death. If you don’t like the job then don’t do it.
Yeah … Unless you’re good friends with him, don’t expect your doctor to tell you how miserable he is. It’s unprofessional.
I work here in a medical college part of the Yeshiva system. In the final semester the soon to be hatched new MDs are all given a 13 week course on money management and billing and that’s the one they pass but also do the worst in.
Ray
And continued abuse of healthcare professionals by congress and the insurance system will make the problems worse in the next 10-20 years.
We already have massive shortages of all healthcare professionals, which leads to time-crunch during clinical practice. Patient complaints all come in two varieties: Either “my doctor doesn’t spend enough time with me” or “I have to wait too long to see my doctor”. You will notice that these are catch-22 issues – alleviating one exacerbates the other.
As more and more healthcare providers like myself feel the “Affordable” Care Act changes more and more acutely, we’re going to be leaving practice. People can continue to be non-appreciative of healthcare providers as human beings with their own rights if they like, but they probably won’t like the system they get out of it.
As to the topic of the quote, there were 2.6 million deaths in the US in 2013:
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm
The most recent numbers from the FBI as of 2012 paint the number of firearm homicides in the US as it’s usual circa-10,000 annual number:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_States#Violent_crime_related_to_guns
10,000 divided by 2,600,000 gives you a rough .0038% of deaths occurring due to gun violence. Where’s the “epidemic” exactly? Seems to me we have much bigger fish to fry on the health front.
The ACA will assure that a lot of people in healthcare will become rich. Unfortunately, almost all will be government bureaucrats, almost none MDs. Yet, AFAIK, tuitions at med schools has not decreased.
The ACA will ensure there is a two-tier medical system.
The poor schmucks with the ACA will get rationed care whenever convenient to those running the ACA.
Everyone else will be paying the full cost of the ACA and paying on top of that for healthcare in a reasonable time-frame.
The ACA will prove destructive to society, if they ever have the balls to implement it in its true form.
Bureaucrats and insurance executives, yes.
ALL the congressional staffers (who REALLY wrote the ACA over a 35 yr period) and every member of the House of Reptiles who rammed it down out throats should be charged with practicing medicine without a license. Malpractice actually.
If guns are keeping you up at night, ask one of those doctor to prescribe you some sleeping pills.
Though, statistically speaking, that doctor and those pills are more likely to kill you. But hey, we are not here to talk about logic, we are to talk about guns and how they make us feel.
“We are here to talk about guns and how they make us feel.”…….Warm and fuzzy all over….. well, maybe not fuzzy but definitely secure.
The real tragedy is the combined epidemic of ignorance and inflated self-worth (on the part of the doctors).
We didn’t freekin’ ask. DOCTORS CAN’T EVEN HELP PROTECT US FROM OBAMACARE. Which means that they cannot even protect themselves or their profession.
Hookers give faster service and more relief than doctors, we don’t ask them either.
If doctors want to cure something, they should at least start with an easy one, and something that might help their credibility. It can still be a LARGE and DANGEROUS issue, they should tackle the stupid-crazy-can’t-fool-me-I’m-a-moron a-holes that are pitching “global warming/global cooling/climate change”. Those people are broken.
My ENT drives a Maseratti. Just sayin’. And I know for a fact that his house was 2.5m. He’s 43, 2 kids and works for a small hospital here in Bumfudge, MI. His wife is an RN and his father was a factory worker. Sounds like his struggle is real dawg.
Anecdotal… Pretty sure we, as gun owners, should know better than most that you’re statistics aren’t based on a single case. My other role, as a physician, also cringes at that idea. Go figure….
We, as gun owners, should know who we’re talking to before we say “We, as gun owners…” as if the person we don’t agree with/believe isn’t a gun owner. Also, my anecdotal statistics are non-existant. I never said they were statistics, and by me saying “My ENT”, obviously it was an anecdote based on a single case. I never said how much he made, I just said what I know. I know what he drives, I helped build his house, and my father went to school with his. Go check your blood pressure Dr. Strangelove.
I noted the bill being held up over whether gun ownership/licensing should be a matter of public record. I don’t see why that should be a big deal, so long as we open up several other things to be “public record”. Is household income over $150,000/year? Public record. Do any teenage girls live in your house? Public record. Do any PRE-TEEN girls live in your house? Public record. Will your home be empty for more than a week this year? Do you leave a key under the mat? How much cash do you keep in your wallet? Where do you keep your car keys? Public record.
All these things, along with firearm ownership, are nobody’s business, other than criminals’. Lump all together and vote up or down, you’ll make the right decision.
If gun records are public data, all library records and internet searches will be public record.
If you’re not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about…
Why don’t doctors ever come out and admit that stupidity is an epidemic?
Doing that will be hazardous to *their* health…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MI0-rUHorj8
If I wasnt married I’d marry her!!!!
Comments are closed.