Puterbac News Network and Political Discussion Thread

[hedge]

"We are all less free than we were a few months ago.

1) SCOTUS has said Congress has unlimited taxing authority. "

So you're blaming the conservative SCOTUS for making us less free?

[puterbac]

"We are all less free than we were a few months ago.

1) SCOTUS has said Congress has unlimited taxing authority. "

So you're blaming the conservative SCOTUS for making us less free?

Yes. That is certainly one place to put blame.

[puterbac]

puter gripes louder than anybody here even though his company pays 10k towards his health plan. He should get out and about sometime and see what the little people have to pay for their own healthcare.

I don't know who you think I am, but I am smack dab in the middle.

And for the love of God I wasn't griping about the 10k or 4k. I was pointing out what I think many of the effects of Opramacare are going to be. Why the 2k penalty was set so low etc.

Frankly we used to be able to have some actual discussions about why something was good or bad etc, but it has devolved into Stiffler like responses with DSL throwing out cock shots, tick immediately goes to the "this author (insert ANY name here) is a partisan hack" and therefore not worthy of ones and zeroes on the screen, rat...is just rat doesn't care unless it smells like ham because hey he made his fortune in Microsoft in the 90's and got his (good for him btw) and fuck everybody else now (not good for him), and hedge who oscillates between reasonable and Sharptonesque about 10 x per minute.

Hell all I said was that if it wasn't for Oprama care being passed then even I could deal with the loss.

Opramacare and its implications are downright scary IMO. You may disagree, but you never say why. Its just insults and one liners.

Maybe tick sees a boon to his biz with Opramacare (thanks govt welfare...heh) and maybe DSL is just cranky cause he has to pay his own rent now. I don't know.

[Big Orange Junky]

"The employees deserve what their work is worth, nothing more. No different than the kid that mows the lawn deserves what the market is for mowing the lawn. As an employee you deserve the worth of your work."

Then why were you complaining about making $6 an hour? Clearly you were being vastly overpaid...

I wasn't complaining about it. I was pointing out that people assume doctors make a ton of money but I made more as a factory employee per hour than I did as a doctor. It wasn't 6 bucks an hour it was 9.95 per hour my first year.

I did say it is ironic that the gubment says residents are not employees when it comes to being able to negotiate salary, we were not allowed to do that. BUT there were a couple of residency programs that then quit paying income tax because of that ruling saying that if residents are not employees but are students like the courts said then they didn't need to pay FICA etc. They eventually lost that lawsuit so the courts said that the gubment can have their cake and eat it too. They can call them students when it comes to letting the market dictate pay and they have to do the whole match/lottery thing and accept whatever salary they mandate because they don't have rights as employees, but they are employees when it comes to the gubment taking money from them in the form of taxes. Now I have said that was an unfair situation because of it being both things, not one or the other.

But as far as the minimal amount of pay I wasn't complaining about that, I was just pointing out how little it was and the amount was so low that it was "unbelievable" until I linked my published salary and published schedule proving that indeed I did make 9.95 per hour my first year.

Heck those that came before me in the 80's made less than minimum wage. I had it good compared to them.

[Big Orange Junky]

The outcome was never in doubt in my mind.

Too many people want other peoples money. That's all it takes.

The reason didn't have anything to do with any other issue except gubment handouts. The number getting handouts has now climbed so high that their side will never lose another election because it is only going to continue to grow.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Has it been mentioned yet that tea party champ and colossal imbecile Allen West was kicked out on his rear?

[Owlman]

"The employees deserve what their work is worth, nothing more. No different than the kid that mows the lawn deserves what the market is for mowing the lawn. As an employee you deserve the worth of your work."

Then why were you complaining about making $6 an hour? Clearly you were being vastly overpaid...

I wasn't complaining about it. I was pointing out that people assume doctors make a ton of money but I made more as a factory employee per hour than I did as a doctor. It wasn't 6 bucks an hour it was 9.95 per hour my first year.

That's residency, which is part of training. If you made $9.95 per hour after residency, then you must be a very poor physician.

[Big Orange Junky]

"The employees deserve what their work is worth, nothing more. No different than the kid that mows the lawn deserves what the market is for mowing the lawn. As an employee you deserve the worth of your work."

Then why were you complaining about making $6 an hour? Clearly you were being vastly overpaid...

I wasn't complaining about it. I was pointing out that people assume doctors make a ton of money but I made more as a factory employee per hour than I did as a doctor. It wasn't 6 bucks an hour it was 9.95 per hour my first year.

That's residency, which is part of training. If you made $9.95 per hour after residency, then you must be a very poor physician.

Residents are doctors, that's the point. As a doctor I made 9.95 per hour my first year, you missed the beginning. It's kinda like the hacks ass thing, you gotta be around at the start to get it.

The rich doctor remarks to residents was what got it started when the janitors made more than the residents in the hospital. That kind of got the discussion rolling and when I said that the janitors made more per hour I was called out so I figgured my hourly wages and it was 9.95 per hour. That still didn't satisfy some so I then posted the link to my residency department complete with salary information and my call schedule showing the hours worked and indeed it came out to 9.95 per hour.

Then they wondered about the salary posted, not realizing that residents didn't get to negotiate their salaries and that spawned another discussion etc. It's been going on for many years, again like Hacks ass.

LOL.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Puter- Serious question. Do you find it disturbing and cause for concern that Romney got 3 million fewer votes than even McCain?

[Owlman]

$9.95. They've made it so much easier on residents now.

[Big Orange Junky]

$9.95. They've made it so much easier on residents now.

Yep, they really freaked when I told them that. Didn't really believe it. I told them the ones before me made less than minimum wage in the 80's and early 90's plus they worked more hours than I did (I only worked 80 hours per week but those guys worked 100-120).

It's even easier now, interns can't do overnight call any more and can only work a maximum of 16 hours at a time. They just changed that in 2011, they also changed it to where all residents can only work 24 and then had a maximum of 6 hours for checkout. I was allowed to work 30, I just couldn't admit new patients past 24. I could send my intern down and have him admit the appendix though at 0700 (when I came in at 0500 the morning before so I was in my 26th hour so I couldn't admit) but I could go do the appendix at 0900 "post call". I could stay the next day until 1100 and do my normal morning lineup. Now they can't operate the next day they are cut off at 24 hours so they are going to lose lots of cases. I got a ton of cases "post call" but that is no more either. Think about it if you have call every third day then that is also no operating every third day that you are post call. Before you were only losing around a half day post call cause you had to leave at 1100 but you could operate til then. Now you lose a whole day every third day. That's sad.

They are going to have to extend surgical residency because of the idiot non surgeons that are responsible for these restrictions (they have no clue how surgical training works). The studies already show that my training was not as good as the ones that came before me because I was restricted to 80 hours so had fewer cases. It will only get worse with these new restrictions.

[aTm]

Frightening

[Owlman]

The change to 16 hours at a time occurred in 1989. It was a big deal and they came to get the opinion of the chief residents. It was a set-up. They told us that they wanted feedback. What they really wanted was to have us talk for lip service, then tell us that the decision was already made. (my salary my first year of residency, $16,000 per year, 105 hours per week, 50 weeks per year. 36 on and 12 off. It was even worse 15 years before (before the East Coast resident strike) where the residents had to stay in the hospital a week at a time.

[bluetick]

Frankly we used to be able to have some actual discussions about why something was good or bad etc, but it has devolved into Stiffler like responses

Hell all I said was that if it wasn't for Oprama care being passed then even I could deal with the loss.

Opramacare and its implications are downright scary IMO. You may disagree, but you never say why. Its just insults and one liners.

Maybe tick sees a boon to his biz with Opramacare (thanks govt welfare...heh) and maybe DSL is just cranky cause he has to pay his own rent now. I don't know.

I've been in heathcare insurance for 27 years and know BCBS TN like the back of my hand. Since the mid-90s I've been sounding the alarm from cnnsi to worlcrashing to this place about the crippling rise of healthcare costs to the consumer - not with one-liners, but with charts and graphs and articles and all manner of facts supporting the obvious. The US spent a thousand bucks per person on individual care back in the 80s, it started building to 3-4k in the 90s, and then skyrocketed during the bush years to 8k. Most of that time YOU, puterbac, kept mum with your sweet family plan paid in full by your employer. You chose to ignore the light at the other end of the tunnel, and now the train is bearing down on you ("I have to pay 30% of my plan - SHITTTT"). That you think this started with obamacare is hilarious (healthcare costs actually stabilized for most of his term). But a generation of huge increases coupled with The Great Recession was bound to reach a tipping point. You get that, right?

Maybe I'll pull some more charts out again, just for you. Now that you've got skin in the game.

[Owlman]

80% of healthcare costs occur the last 2 years of your life. Health care inflation (except for the past 2 years) has outpaced annual inflation for most of the past 20 years. tick is correct.

[Big Orange Junky]

The change to 16 hours at a time occurred in 1989. It was a big deal and they came to get the opinion of the chief residents. It was a set-up. They told us that they wanted feedback. What they really wanted was to have us talk for lip service, then tell us that the decision was already made. (my salary my first year of residency, $16,000 per year, 105 hours per week, 50 weeks per year. 36 on and 12 off. It was even worse 15 years before (before the East Coast resident strike) where the residents had to stay in the hospital a week at a time.

Owl, I just finished two years ago. There was no 16 offcial hour max that I was aware of until the year after I finished (started in July 2011 and I finished in June of 2011). It was a 24 hour call with a 6 hour post call period where you could not admit new patients but you could care for known patients and you could operate. That made it a total of 30 hours at a time max with reasonable exceptions (if you started a case that you reasonably expected to finish before your time ran out you could stay, if there was an emergency you could stay till relieved etc). The total hour restriction was 80 hours per week averaged for the month. That's how we got a weekend off, we worked 100 or 120 hours one week so we could work 60 one week with the weekend off but it had to average out to 80 hours per week over the month. I am not sure exactly what year the 80 hours per week averaged over the month actually became required (some toyed with it before it was officially required) because it was already fully in place my intern year (2006) but seems like it may have been 2004 or so. Not sure.

Those were ACGME official rules for 2006-2011 (I was actually on the rules committee for 3 of those years) and the new 16 hour per shift rule became an ACGME requirement in July 2011. Thank God I didn't have to try and make a schedule with that in mind. It was hard enough with the other restrictions, but the chiefs one year behind me did have to do it. They had a harder chief year than I did because they had to pull more solo call because of that.

Are you saying that they were actually talking about that back in 89 or am I misreading that because it sure wasn't an ACGME requirement until July 2011.

Mine for the whole 5 years was 80 hours per week 50 weeks per year with a 30 hour in house at one time max, 10 hours required off between shifts. Big difference than your 105 hours per week 50 weeks per year. It may not seem like much of a difference but when you work a 100-120 hour week an 80 hour week feels lazy and a 60 hour week feels like a vacation.

[Owlman]

1989 New York State, started June 1989, just after my chief resident year

[Big Orange Junky]

1989 New York State, started June 1989, just after my chief resident year

I knew they had their own rules and started work hour restrictions before it was an ACGME requirement thanks to the Zion (sp) case. I had no idea they went to the 16 hour day so long ago. Was that a state requirement then or was that just a program requirement? If I understand your post correctly it appears it was a state requirement.

Do you know if they kept that or did they fall into line and drop the 16 hour shift when the ACGME introduced the official 80 hour week restrictions? I ask because all of the surgery program directors had a cow when the 16 hour rule was introduced and passed and I would have thought they would have expected it if New York state still had that requirement.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Police forced to break up anti-Obama protest at Ole Miss in which racial slurs were tossed about

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/raci ... 12217.html

[Professor Tiger]

I rarely post here, but I want to give my take on this election melodrama and the subsequent gnashing of the teeth of conservatives.

It's really easy to see what happened here: Pro-Lifers get on their soapbox = Pro Choicers go vote Dem.

Conservatives are outright hostile to black and Latinos = People of color go vote Dem.

Conservatives get on their soapbox about gay marriage = the fags go vote Dem.

Conservatives tout their Christian Values = people who are indifferent to religion go vote Dem.

This is the election in a nutshell. IT DOESN'T MATTER that the economy is shitty. People are not going to join forces with a party who is OUTRIGHT HOSTILE towards them. This is basic human nature.

The sad thing is that I know a lot of conservative people; they are the NICEST, most caring, upstanding people on a personal level. But since they are so rabid in their beliefs, it drives other Americans away. And as long as this climate exists, this division is going to continue, no matter who they run as candidates.

Just think about what they are saying when they say, "Let's Take America Back"....

Of all the posts I've read since the election, this is the one I agree with the most.

My conclusion from this election is that relentless, vitriolic, white-hot rage against Obama is not a winning campaign strategy. And the rage seems more aimed at Obama the man rather than his policies. The common R argument I heard came across as, "Vote for Romney because Obama is a Moozlum atheist foreign-born communist!" I did not hear much like, "Vote for Romney because he will do these things to improve the lives of average people..."

I opposed Obama on his deficits, the anti-religious freedom aspects of Obamacare, and Benghazi. But I never hated the air he breathes like most conservatives do. I suggest that conservatives learn to present their arguments positively and not as a hostile reaction to somebody else. I especially suggest they articulate conservatism as a solution to average peoples' problems.

Here's an example, for starters: I've read the reactions of conservative punditry today. The consensus seems to be that all Obama voters are looking for "stuff" provided by the government for free. The implication is that all Obama voters are welfare queens being paid not to work. But there are millions and millions of people who are unemployed right now. The vast majority of them are seriously looking for work. The vast majority of them desperately want to work, but until then, must depend on unemployment insurance and food stamps, which probably totals around $1,500 per month. Along come the R''s who tell them they are lazy worthless bums, and if they were worth anything, they'd have a job and wouldn't be leaching off the "productive people." And if the R's had their way, they'd take that $1,500 away, and give it to the "productive people." Now why on earth would people in that harsh situation ever consider voting Republican?

Other people addicted to government "stuff," that the R's proudly disdain, include social security recipients, wounded war veterans, etc. The R's need to shorten their list of people they hate, and lengthen their list of people they love beyond rich people.