I don't really deserve to have an opinion on it because (1) it didn't affect me and (2) I don't know a lot about it.Originally Posted by U-Ute
I do know it was a failure for many (like Rocker), and I didn't hear much about its successes until the past two weeks. Based on recent opinions, you would think it had ushered in a millennial age of healthcare bliss.
As a society we are schizophrenic about this goal. We have made the collective decision that we're not going to allow people to die in the streets. At the same time, we can't quite bring ourselves to decide just how far we are wiling to go. And there are loud voices on both political extremes of this issue who will not back down and who have a great influence. The only way to get a broadly effective and broadly acceptable healthcare system is by significant compromise, which just doesn't seem possible.
Ironically, trump may be in a position to do some good here. He's not ideological and he's a bulldog. Maybe he will force a compromise. That is one good thing that I have seen so far that might come of his presidency.
"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
--Antoine de Saint-Exupery
"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
--Yeats
“True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”
--John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell
Sure... then doctors can start having their pay resemble teachers
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"Be a philosopher. A man can compromise to gain a point. It has become apparent that a man can, within limits, follow his inclinations within the arms of the Church if he does so discreetly." - The Walking Drum
"And here’s what life comes down to—not how many years you live, but how many of those years are filled with bullshit that doesn’t amount to anything to satisfy the requirements of some dickhead you’ll never get the pleasure of punching in the face." – Adam Carolla
Would they get summers, holidays and 2 weeks at Christmas?
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Boy, not me, but, I'm opposed in principle to omnibus bills that affect a fifth of our economy, that not a soul had read, much less understood, and reach floor to ceiling in paperwork. Plus, the authors made up rules on the fly, pushed it through in the middle of the night on Christmas Eve, and in the end couldn't even convince Olympia Snowe or Susan Collins or any other so-called RINO to sign on. For me, those are red flags that shouldn't have been ignored.
But, that's just me.
“Children and dogs are as necessary to the welfare of the country as Wall Street and the railroads.” -- Harry S. Truman
"You never soar so high as when you stoop down to help a child or an animal." -- Jewish Proverb
"Three-time Pro Bowler Eric Weddle the most versatile, and maybe most intelligent, safety in the game." -- SI, 9/7/15, p. 107.
I have no idea what things are like for most doctors, but when I used to work at primary children's hospital, there was one eye surgeon (the only truly mean person I met there) who had his calendar out on his secretary's wall. There were at least 20 weeks crossed off as vacation. That one dude, at least, had more vacation than a teacher, and I'm willing to bet he earned closer to 7 figures than to 5.
It was a horrible way to make public policy of any kind. You didn't mention all the lying.
"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
--Antoine de Saint-Exupery
"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
--Yeats
“True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”
--John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell
Docs. You go see them. they give five minutes of their time. They are literally pushing you out the door. You need to rush to ask questions. They don't adequately explain--they just move on to the next patient. And then you get a bill for a regular checkup and the amount is fucking ridiculous. Most of them work four days a week. The surgeons start early with the surgeries so they can make their rounds in the early afternoon. Except for the really hard working ones, they are all out of there by 5 at the latest ( many of them much earlier). They bring home bank and then bitch that the insurance companies are ripping them off.
But they are on call on the weekend once a month. Just brutal. The humanity.
Make no mistake. A significant reason health care costs are so expensive is because we pay shit loads to doctors. There are other reasons. IHC, a nonprofit organization, is a complete cash cow. And if anybody presses them on the issue-they strategically blame the lawyers--the only group who is hated more than the insurance companies.
We already made this decision. No one gets turned away. No one. They just go to the emergency centers.
And some do get that
But that's usually after hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt and years working 80-90 hour weeks.
I have to give credit, especially in Utah, to the UEA and their campaign about teacher pay. The public massively supports anything to raise teacher pay, but often doesn't really look at what teachers make when compared to other government employees, especially when you consider the schedule teachers work
You want to see people who make crappy money? Check out DCFS workers. Many have masters degrees and years of experience. Their reward? $18 an hour.
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That is, shall we say, less than ideal. I agree.
But I don't think there would've been any change that could've been made in any other way. Given a heads up, there were too many people who wouldn't like some aspect of any change and would, with any time, kill it. Then we'd still be in the situation we were in 10 years ago.
Kind of like Normandy: it was ugly and painful, but it was the first step that needed to be taken.
At least now we have to make a change because the new system is far from great, and we won't go back to the old system because there are too many people dependent on pieces of the new system.
This is a whole other thread, but I get a chuckle about people who complain about the amount of money school district administrators but are also hard core free market enthusiasts.
You know why they get paid so much, right? It's an essential job that nobody wants to do.
Of course, these are also the same people who treat the public education system as a glorified baby sitting service, but then complain when Little Johnny fails his tests.
Utah could be smarter and not have so many districts though. Salt Lake County alone pays over $1.25 Million in salary to school superintendents alone.
Local control at what cost....(this extends to everyone having to have their own little city too)
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This is because everyone is so concerned that the money they pay isn't going to their school.
Look at how the Canyons School District happened: they didn't like all their money going to build west side schools.
The financial rewards of medicine outweigh the costs by a million miles.
When I lived in NOLA, I knew a lot of med students and residents. Many good friends and good people, but, man, did they have a tendency to complain about money and workload. It's hard to feel bad when you know they will soon enter the 1% and never have to make a hard financial decision again.
There are a lot of public school teachers in my family, and I agree with you. They are doing fine financially.
Vegas has the opposite problem, 300,000 students, 35,000 employees, 336 schools and an annual budget of $5.2 billion and is the 5th largest school district in the country. They are currently in the process of coming up with a plan to break up into smaller districts.
IHC is a piece of shit to work for unless you are management/admin. They keep nurses wages low so they are constantly in a nursing shortage. My wife, who is 57, just retired after 20 years because they were chronically understaffed and required the nurses to work in situations where they provide unsafe care. Her last day (she was a charge nurse) she left her report summary. "Once again the ___ unit was understaffed, the nurses were overworked and the patients did not receive a safe level of care." They use their insurance company to strong arm doctors and to require patients to see IHC doctors and use IHC facilities. I studied antitrust law a long time ago, but I cannot understand why that is not an antitrust violation.
Last edited by UTEopia; 01-19-2017 at 12:32 PM.
And then a team of them save your child's life and their skills become worth 10x what you paid them.
“Children and dogs are as necessary to the welfare of the country as Wall Street and the railroads.” -- Harry S. Truman
"You never soar so high as when you stoop down to help a child or an animal." -- Jewish Proverb
"Three-time Pro Bowler Eric Weddle the most versatile, and maybe most intelligent, safety in the game." -- SI, 9/7/15, p. 107.
They just announced they are laying off their software developers to outsource the product.
http://www.sltrib.com/news/4830722-1...f-52-employees
I'm sure someone's getting a nice bonus out of it.
I put the current issues with healthcare on the executives of hospitals. Doctors should get paid because of the reason you detail here.
But, let me leave you with this chart that was posted on Twitter by our own @ColoUte.
healthcare.JPG
All those docs. Saving everybody's lives on a daily basis. They are indeed gods.
I'm curious what you think a teacher's schedule is.
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I think it depends on how good the teacher is.
You are probably right, but even so, I think there are a lot of misperceptions (illustrated by what I think Diehard is saying) about teacher schedules. Granted this is 13 year old information, and I think my wife was a stellar elementary school teacher, but my wife is also not one to spend extra time for no reason. She is kind of a bare minimum kind of person in a delightful way... but here goes.
My wife started out at $22k, finished at $29k. Her contract hours were from 7:30am to 4pm each day, so a half hour short of what the average 40 hour a week person might work. She would however work from 7-10 or 11 at night creating lesson plans, correcting papers, talking to parents, etc. They would work about a week after school let out in June... so usually to about mid June. They reported back mid to late July, so about a month and a half off. They got the same holidays as government employees. Other days were typically days students had off but they worked.
On top of that, and the part I didn't realize is ALL of the school supplies she provided out of her own pocket. All the soap, glue, tape, paper, pencils, crayons, photocopies, etc. Typically she would spent $1-2k a year on that stuff (until I started hitting up law firms and other local businesses for donations).
So based solely off of contract hours, she made about $16.80 an hour. If you factor in her actual hours, and subtract out the out-of-pocket expenses, she was making about $10/hour. In short it was a labor of love.
I'm not saying we shouldn't pay cops more (even a lot more), but we clearly didn't pay teachers well when she was teaching. I understand now the average starting pay for a teacher is about $34k. If we want to attract top talent there, the salary isn't going to do that.
I agree. I know many teachers who routinely work 50-60 hours per week.
I think you can look up public school teacher salaries for Utah. You could look up the salaries of your kids' teachers.
Well many cops in Utah are making $15-$16 an hour....not at starting pay but after several years. A veteran officer in SSL is making just under $21. As for spending your own money, same in a lot of jobs. I spend a lot of my own money each year.
As I said DCFS pays their caseworkers with masters degrees $17-18 an hour. (That's with 8-10 years experience). Their supervisors make $20.
Saying teachers get the same holidays as every other employees isn't being really honest is it?
Other government employees get 10-12 Holiday days a year. There's no 1-2 week winter break, or spring break or UEA etc.
As for pay, while the average starting salary is $34,000 the average salary is about $47,000, or $22.50 an hour. (And if we listen to the Deseret News from 2015 that's low as they said the average elementary teacher in Utah made $52,000)
Should pay come up? Sure. But there are many other government employees who make a paltry salary that deserve that money too, many who don't have the UEA and sympathy on their side. (How many people like DCFS? Haha)
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Christmas break is the only one I can think of where they actually get those days off. The other ones you mention are teacher work days. That's when they are writing evaluations, putting in grades, etc.
The obligatory follow up ...
"I think it must be apparent to every thinking mind that the noblest of all professions is that of teaching, and that upon the effectiveness of that teaching hangs the destiny of nations."
It isn't about the UEA, it is that people see the value of education. Are you claiming there are no police unions, or just that they've failed you when it comes to income?
As far as UEA holiday, teachers are working then. Winter break and spring break they get, but do you not get paid vacation leave? I remember sick time, but no vacation PTO.
And to contrast with many government jobs, when the whistle blows at 5pm they slide out of work like Fred Flinstone slides down the back of a dinosaur to not think about work until they arrive the next day.
Like I said, I think most cops should get paid more too, but your remarks about teachers is wholly ignorant and unfounded.
Good teachers are worth their weight in gold. They deserve to have states make a substantial investment in the children by paying teachers enough money to attract the best candidates.
Likewise with cops. It is almost unconscionable that cops are forced to pick up extra OT shifts after working a full shift, just to make ends meet.
I am very lucky to live in an area with very good schools and excellent teachers. Both of the local high schools are 99th percentile schools (open enrollment, kids can choose either). I also know that our teachers make a good salary, and as I said they are worth every penny.
It all comes down to what the local community and the state values.
One problem is our society really doesn't value workers on the lower end on the scale. We Americans tend to hold highly-paid people in high regard, while looking down our nose somewhat at our waitress, or grocery/retail clerk, fast food cook, gas station attendant, etc. We tend not to respect the working poor, and to blame them for their situation in life.
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