[RickeyD]

Originally Posted by golfing eagles

Unfortunately, it's worse than that. Currently, there are about 900,000 practicing clinicians in the US; those are projected to shrink by as many as 250,000 over the next 5 years due to early retirement and alternative non patient care careers. Who is going to replace them? With a growing and aging population, demand will increase as supply shrinks. One of the main reasons for physician dissatisfaction is burdensome government regulation---and we all know what happens if the feds take over health care---just look at the VA.
When I applied to medical schools in 1979, there were 128,000 applicants for 17,000 seats overall; due to multiple applications, each school with 100-200 seats received 8-10,000 applications. You could randomly toss 90% in the trash and still have a great pool to choose from. Five years ago there were 23,000 applicants for the same 17,000 seats---choices have dwindled. Already, teaching hospitals cannot fill their positions with American graduates. At his rate, soon you can just walk in the front door and have a seat. It is no longer, if the left will pardon my foul language, "competitive" But then again, why bother with diplomas and licenses---just show your "participant" trophy. I'm sure we all would get that warm and fuzzy feeling when visiting a doctor who hangs a "Certificate of Participation" on their wall above their desk.
For the "grass is greener" crowd that idolizes European style health systems--just try living there--anyone who can afford to opt out of their system generally does so. It is fine for preventative care and routine minor illness, beyond that, make sure your affairs are in order.
And for those who believe the skewed and biased WHO rankings of world health care that places the US in 28th place and Luxembourg in 1st, consider this: We all know that when world leaders , royalty, and billionaires get sick, they flock to "Luxembourg"--not NY or Boston, right?

What you are seeing is the decline of the American model of healthcare. It does not address how are we going to provide affordable health care for our population. Rising medical costs have more to do with people living longer, people eating fast foods instead of healthy foods, medical malpractice suits, the misuse of healthcare services by patients and by fraud mostly by health care practitioners. Also, advanced technologies in radiology and medicine come at a cost. People want to live longer and healthier yet maintain the lifestyles they are accustomed to but at what cost ? The model no longer works. Please don't blame the Feds for this misfortune, they are but a small part of it. The solution is not a leftist solution or a progressive one it is the only one. We may have reached the tipping point at which we have to decide do we want a healthier population or a smaller population. The longer we live the more of a burden we put on those in their working years. If the average life expectancy keeps growing the system will become increasingly unsustainable. IMHO we as humans need to lower our expectations and realize that in order to provide for all, we need to choose between what we can achieve and what is practical. Not withstanding, technology will move forward in all the sciences but the health sciences must realize there is a cost in moving forward that must be met with affordable solutions which can only be implemented and managed by efficiency of scale, otherwise the system will implode. National health care is our only solution. I am not a leftist, just thinking practically is all.