Considerations of a Doctor-to-be (Part I)

I just recently finished taking the MCAT (for the first time and hopefully for the last) and have begun filling out the application for all the med schools I can think to get into. While trying my hand at finally getting into one of those illustrious schools that trains the future care masters of this nation, I can't help but wonder what the health care system will be like once I finally finished with the program. (This worrying is further compounded by the fact that my wife is 4.5 months pregnant and very soon I will be responsible of providing for the both her and the offspring.) You know its crazy, you think you've heard all the problems with the health care field and then once you get really involved in it you start to hear and see so much more. My first real worry about becoming a doctor began with the talk around Hillary Clinton about how she was pushing for a "universal" healthcare plan. Around some of my friends I would hear them talk about how great it would be to get "free" healthcare - of course the scary fact that we'd have to pay for all that "free" healthcare once we make enough money to do so didn't sound so good, but I could see the perks of such as a plan as a poor, college student who has a son on the way. I heard stories about how good other countries healthcare is where they have "socialized" medicine. I've heard that primary care is amazing, and that emergency care is even better. Heck, maybe I'd even be able to be talked into a free flu shot. The real discussion didn't begin for me until I started talking to physicians - and granted, doctors would like medicine to not change to much from how it has been. Doctors make more $$$ on private insurance patients than they do on government program cases like medicare or medicaid. Doctors hate the paperwork hassel with governmental healthcare systems, but being a doctor who will see medicare and medicaid patients ensures a hefty load of patients as people on this system really like to make doctor visits (and many have to for the conditions that they have). A barely retired ENT doc turned professor wh0o now works at BYUI (Doctor Davis for those who might know him - a great teacher and person) told me that Hillary Care would be the biggest disaster to American medicine ever. According to him it would put a huge majority of doctors out of work since they would be unable to pay malpractice insurance on such lowered incomes that would be seen when only seeing government cases. Apparently it would hurt even further the already disasterous average waiting time in a hospital for a country who has people die while waiting in waiting rooms to see a physician (and in case you haven't heard, things like this are happening in hospitals right here in the U.S.). It could also be expected that the quality of care would also be worse with the overwhelming increase of patients that would be expected now pinned to fewer doctors. One of the biggest problems however on top of all this, would be the cuts on programs for critical or terminal illnesses that many private insurance companies now cover. For example one physician I shadowed talked about how in Britain diseases such as MS had no chance of recieving drugs for treatment to try to slow the effects until J. K. Rowlings's brother came down with the disease and she threw money at the government to force health care cash into that one disease, increasing the cases of treated MS from 0.1% to 4%. So apparently according to all that I've been hearing, if you have a real critical problem in socialized medicine you get nothing but pain medication and a hearty "good luck" to make things all better.....