What about the doctor who can´t find his arse with both hands? I have one who spends his time typing on his laptop. I have had 2 yearly physicals where he never used his stethescope, never listened to my heart or lungs or caratids (I had a blockage in one 15 years ago) it is in the records, but he never checks. My complaints of shortness of breathe are ignored. I can´t find a doctor who is accepting new patients on Medicare and Tricare for Life. So is he better than nothing? I am 70 and the handwriting is on the wall.

Of course, said forebears grinned and bore more than people today, because they *paid for their own* health care, out of pocket.

This is another case of the government creating more dependency, and then being forced to lie in the very bed it made.

For Medicaid and Medicare there should be a minimum co-pay that you give the doc´s clerk before he sees you. $25...$30...$50...something to make you think about taking two aspirins and riding out the cold.

Same thing with private insurance. The co-pays should be large enough to deter people from running to the doctor about very minor ailments.

There are certain things of course that need to be checked but most people can figure it out. There is a large group of people that actually like going to the doctor. One of my great aunts was like that. Always had something that needed to be seen about. That was in the days of all private pay and I am sure the doctor was happy to see her multiple times if need be.

The demand for medical services free at the point of delivery is infinite. it is no use blaming one segment of the population or another; all free services rendered at any level will be consumed and more will be demanded. This is just another reminder of the function of price to allocate finite resources.

I am not a doctor--I am a nurse practitioner.

Some people come in for a visit if they had some random isolated symptom in previous days that is no longer present--such as "two days ago, I was nauseated".

Just what am I supposed to do about that? It´s ridiculous what people come in for sometimes.

When it isn´t ´free´, then a resource is used wisely. When a resource is ´free´ then it is also scarce - too many chasing too few.
Funny how a free market approach (which we haven´t truly had in the US for decades as it requires government not being involved) ensures sufficient medical resources for everyone willing to pay - and as a side-effect was the best in the world. Then the government/libtards got involved and ´fixed´ it....

#1, you are going to end up with me, or someone like me--that´s what´s going to happen. And if I do say so, it sounds like that would be a better outcome than your current situation.

I dumped my doctor about a year ago - I couldn´t see anyone but a NP who spent the whole visit typing into her laptop, and who decided (without an x-ray) that my hip pain was bursitis and put me on pain meds. After another couple of months of agony, I went to an orthopedic surgeon only to discover I had dysplasia, my hip was worn down to bone, and I needed at hip replacement. Granted, I´m young for a hip replacement, but still, no x-ray?

I´m thankful I had good health insurance to pay for it.

Completely predictable, of course: make something free or low cost and more people will use it. Now those responsible for the system are complaining of what should have been obvious to anyone at the start. There are no free lunches. This is a hard lesson to learn and one that is easily forgotten by many. It doesn´t help to have do-gooder, naive, economically illiterate and demagogic politicians running around promising the masses all that free stuff.

Now the shoe begins to pinch. The belt must be tightened. First come the aches and pains people are just going to have to learn to live with. Next will be the elective surgeries, especially for the elderly. Finally there will be the problem of end of life care. A death panel by any other name will be just as deadly.

The NHS should alert Americans to what is in store for them - but of course it will not, not for the free lunch crowd. They are being told, and wish to believe, that things will be different in America. Some kind of secret alchemy has been discovered to transmute base metal into gold, thereby solving the hitherto intractable problem of the free lunch.

The concepts of moral risk and the tragedy of the commons will always combine to doom schemes like the NHS and Obamacare. As well hope to reverse the laws of physics as to change these human phenomena. More regulations will only make matters worse. The enterprise is flawed from the start, based upon false assumptions about how people actually behave. The trouble is that those in thrall to such false assumptions are unable or unwilling to learn from experience. They are doomed to keep making the same mistakes over and over again, hoping each time it will be different.

My co-pay is 35. You can bet your life I go when it´s serious and only then. I can take OTC medication for minor ailments.

Sounds like my plan for bankrupting Obamacare. Use it, use it, use it. Gum up the system.

Now the NHS and government complain that the animals behave as they have been trained to behave? Why?

Well, understand this! You have taught the people that every necessity and some luxuries were absolute human rights. And those all should be free. And you would provide them.

So get off your fat arses in Parliament and fulfill your promises. Deliver!

Wow, gee. Free-market pricing allocates resources automatically? Like, like, like there´s some kinda "invisible hand" or something?

What a discovery!

Well geez you idiots said its free so why are you bitching that we use it.

#1 and 8, I totally agree that most doctors nowadays are worthless. I am sorry, but I know of too many instances where doctors did nothing but make the patient´s illnesses worse. I don´t think a lot of the new doctors really care about their patients. I think a lot of them are just in it for the money.

On the other hand, we were told for years that preventative care was the way to go.
By the time some people make it to the doc, their diabetes, high BP, cancer, or other disease is totally out of control.

Those docs that are typing during your visit don´t have to do charts in the evening. You are lucky if the nurse takes your vitals when you go in the exam room. The insurance company will let them know when you need meds, a test, or a diet.