@Luna said:
When I was married and on Tricare, my doctor took it out of charity to the military and their families. It didn't pay shit. Why should someone who devotes so much of their life caring for others be relegated to chump change?
They shouldn't, and, in most Western nations, the government pays quite well. In Canada, doctors willing to head to remote places can get up to double what others receive for the same services (and end up having to pay that for basic resources, still). In other nations, the government may forgive loans made to their doctors for a return of service.
The reason why Medicare/Medicaid/Tricare pays so poorly is because of a lack of political will to reform the entire system. If you boost the public payments, the lower and middle classes bear the burden. The lower arguably receive the care, so the payments balance, but the middle classes will get fucked. The government knows this, so they don't do anything about it. In the short-term, this is a political ploy. In the long-term, it is sheer idiocy.
If you raise Medicare/Medicaid/Tricare and increase its availability by, oh, making it available to everyone on an income-basis (those who make less money pay less; those who make more pay more), you will make it competitive and acceptable to consumers and providers. That would force the private insurers to become more competitive, or leave the market. But, Heaven forbid you make any red-blooded American support the idea of a "crown corporation" in the economy, despite the fact that the federal government is one of the largest corporate suppliers, employers, and consumers in the fucking economy.
I try not to think about all of this shit on a daily basis, because it pushes me further towards the Comedian's mentality about things. But then, if you hear about a lawyer-turned-supervillain in the news, that'd be me.