Whether good or bad politically, he is a master at “demonizing”. Thanks, CS, I have been trying to remember that word for a while as I hear bankers, insurance companies, doctors, Reps, (and I hope his non-alergic dog never gets sick, maybe vets, getting blasted). I realize this is the #4 strategy for politicians (1-3, get reelected) and I know when he meets with these people privately he can turn on the charm and pass the basket.

Good going.

I did not think your original post was an attack on Tea Partiers … until you defended it! And now I change my opinion and believe your original post was an attack! LOL, but I'm also serious. Look again at what you are saying:

I'm not attacking Tea Partiers! I'm just saying they are angry people who cast knee jerk votes which are not based on sound reasoning. But I'm not attacking them! Tea Partiers are so sensitive! They are like children, and I must treat them as children. They are angry, unreasonable children. But I'm NOT attacking them!

With non-attacks like that … who needs attacks?

Exactly! From across the political spectrum.

to take just one element, labor costs will be higher in human medicine due to more advanced formal training

We'll there's also liability, in that even killing a good horse is cheaper than injuring a person. But even figuring in malpractice insurance would probably add only a few hundred per person. I bet that there's no vets earning over $50,000/month, no matter how good they are. I also know that medical was much cheaper (and doctor earnings were much lower) before public and private insurance became common.

Exactly! For some reason my opinion comes off as an attack on the Tea Party.

In all seriousness though, I hear that all the time (as the vet in the article also said), not only strictly because of costs but also the way we practice. We give more face time to clients and take the time to explain ailments and procedures and to listen to the clients' concerns. We also call back just about every client to make sure that the patient is doing well and find out if they have any ongoing concerns (this is when we most often hear the incredulous feedback and requests for us to become their family physician!) It does all relate to the economic side of things because we have to truly justify everything we do and make sure the client feels the value that they are getting…and that's why human medicine too would be more patient responsive if patients were more aware of the costs of everything involved (and the healthcare providers would have to be more cost conscious, which would have the effect of putting downward price pressure on services or reducing the number of unnecessary procedures, medications, etc.)

I also see it from the other perspective, when I see how much our family's medical treatments cost…and often note that the human equivalent procedures are usually priced at least ten fold higher than the identical procedures on the veterinary side. Some of that is necessarily going to be higher (to take just one element, labor costs will be higher in human medicine due to more advanced formal training- although I'd put my best vet techs up against any RN any day.)

Don't be surprised if many of them were Perot voters, and even if some were Anderson voters.

By the way…. one “subtopic” among the commenters in the thread is how long the Tea Partiers have been involved in politics. The way you describe them they are very knowledgeable on events. This leads me to believe that the majority of them have been involved for a while. People don't just suddenly “get smart” over night. Well…. individuals do, but not whole crowds of people at the same time. Whether they voted D or R shouldn't matter…. they probably voted for the person they thought would do the best job. Anyway, I don't really know, but that is what it seems like to me.

Thanks again for the post!

THIS IS WHAT IS WRONG WITH AMERICAN POLITICS!!!!!

veterinary medicine really is a good real world model for the practice of medicine without the middleman of health insurance

My wife and one of my guinea pigs had a hysterectomy a couple of months apart. The pig's operation cost about $300, my wife's was, well, a bit more. Since then, I've been wondering if there was some way to get the next medical procedure from my vet.

If you want to cut the deficit you need to cut spending AND raise taxes. Everything else is voodoo – or a very short term peak of the business cycle (like Bush in 2006, or Hoover in mid-1929) just before the crash.

BTW, I have to laugh at conservative New Yorkers who think the 10th Amendment would actually help them. You mean you want David Paterson and the other jokers in Albany to have even more power? LOL.

As for Article I, Section 8, as a poster says upthread, it includes so many elements as to be meaningless.

Sorry, Jazz, but you haven't dispelled any of the “media-generated” notions about the tea partiers. They still sound like disgruntled reactionaries.

I fully agree with the analogy between pediatrics and vet medicine..and of course with your admiration of Dr. Wight. His books were inspiration for most of us in the veterinary field.

Like it or not what you describe is happening, and here's a taste of a bit of the future I'm suspecting:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35819848/ns/us_news…

I appreciate your concern for teachers, and believe you understand their dilemmas accurately. What I can't agree with are people who make the claim that public schools are “destroying children.” That's just hyperbole that is meaningless, as well as insulting. And I try to remember that public schools, or government schools, whatever we call them, consist of very real human beings who are trying to do the best they can for the mission they've chosen.

Thanks for your post, I have so much admiration for veterinarians, and recall many times explaining to parents that much of pediatrics is a little like veterinary medicine! If those darn sick infants could verbalize their problems! I worked with a nurse who was the hospital nurse for Alf Wight during the last few weeks of his life, (“James Herriot”) whose books I devoured and who will continue to have my undying admiration. I think one of the reasons I ended up in human medicine instead of veterinarian medicine was because it was harder for me to find a summer job working with a vet (although I tried!) so I worked instead for our local hospital ER–and way leads onto way, etc.

Here's an eye-catcher I was reading tonight that I thought was relevant to the heath-care debacle, it was titled: “What Veterinarians Can Teach Us About Health Care” Enjoy–

http://www.newsweek.com/id/234710

But if we start talking about taxing soda, junk-food, or anything else that they use, well then it becomes a problem for them. By the same token, small government folks are always in favor of smaller government, but just as it affects others. But you want to start talking about cutting their government benefits or services, well then it becomes a problem for them. Here I'm talking about the “get your government hands off my healthcare” people who actually receive government-run healthcare.

Hear, hear!!

Those good teachers are fleeing the government schools and going into private/charter schools if they can, and many of them are giving up teaching entirely out of frustration. Some of us want the government out of education to LIBERATE these good teachers. We are not belittling nor demonizing them.

And by the way…I'm a veterinarian and shortly after graduation (in the late 80s) I did a stint at a rural clinic where it was still common to be paid in fresh eggs or produce, with occasional offers of venison or wild turkey (the fowl, not the liquor.) We also had a room that was like a pawn shop, where the clinic owner held TVs and other items as collateral for payments over time on more costly procedures.

Obama's not probably up on indications for tonsillectomy, and it was a bit weird for him to use that situation as an example. That WSJ opinion article probably mistakenly identified the “victims” of that barb as pediatricians, but we pediatricians don't take out tonsils, we just refer to ENTs.

I do spend a significant amount of my time with consultations discussing whether or not a recommended ENT procedure is “really necessary” or “would it really help,” as I'm sure any primary care doc reading these posts could relate to.

But ask any of my very conservative partners and ENT colleagues who they have more trouble with in the present system: criticisms by Obama about unnecessary procedures, or the procedural paperwork necessary to clear the hoops provided by certain insurance companies when a procedure is really necessary? Like it or not, someone is going to be screening for unnecessary procedures.

All I can say in regard to the medical conversation is, “it's complicated…” My granddaddy was an ENT back in WWII and beyond, and I remember he and my grandmother sitting at a card-table, doing the “books” where he would mail out the monthly billings to his patients–some without any other resource would deliver sack-fulls of corn, sometimes we'd peal green-beans by the barrel-full brought to him by farmers who he had treated. For better or worse those days are gone forever.

To all: have a great spring break