Given that with increasing frequency doctors refuse to take new Medicare or Medicaid patients, it seems suspicious that more than a couple of outliers would express support for a "public option."

Sounds like we're dealing with a combination of fakes (as occurred with Sheila Jackson Lee) or some naive med students who haven't been out in the real world, and whose life experience thus far is the indoctrination they've been getting from liberal professors.

I'm a Brown grad. Great school, but the comment above is probably on target. Whatever "experience" they may or may not have had, it's too bad they haven't "experienced" a basic economics class. Sadly, people who are otherwise very smart, just don't understand that there's no free lunch and that govt programs inevitably have unintended consequences. But they're doctors, so clearly they understand the economics of "health care" better than the rest of us [sarcasm].

This is what I truly do not understand about those Brown Students that will eventually take Hippocratic Oath.

Here's a line from the original oath: I will not give a lethal drug to anyone if I am asked, nor will I advise such a plan; and similarly I will not give a woman a pessary to cause an abortion.

Then why would ANY doctor or Brown Student support a bill that pays for abortions?

If this bill passes, wouldn't any doctor in the government 'option' be required to perform abortions or lose their biggest client, the Government?

I mean, isn't there a more innocent form of murder than abortion?

My favorite sign from the Langevin open forum was the one from someone declaring himself a med student. Great. The dumbest demographic in the medical community has an opinion (represented by someone in their early 20's with insurance). Let's listen, everybody.

The stethoscopes, nice touch. As far as the 20 year olds, doctors or otherwise, come & tell us this when you get a real job.

Why hasn't anyone brought up rhode island's own experience with public option insurance as the inevitable result of the Obama plan?

I'm of course referring to Beacon Mutual. While not a health insurance company per se, it was set up by the state to compete with the private sector -- to provide an "option". It was to be an insurer of last resort. At the time, it was thought that companies would keep their own plans. But the
market and the restrictions put in place by lawmakers on private companies without a government interest soon made our government created option virtually our only option.

Great point Newporter.

And we also know the union "influence" on Beacon Mutual and its Board.

Little wonder why SEIU-ACORN is one of the primary backers of the "public option."

(Something about the phrase "public option" rings like "the final solution" in my mind, as I imagine lines of old people standing in line for their showers, err, I mean "end of life counseling.")

"Not sure when the last time Germany led the world in healthcare innovation."

Ummm, Bayer is the 3rd largest pharma company in the world and 2nd in R&D if I'm not mistaken (not to mention Boehringer Ingelheim and
Merck KGaA). Germany is certainly among the leaders in the world in health care (keep in mind the population of Germany is something like a quarter the size of the US). I find the euro-bashing a strange thing with many conservatives (especially when admittedly in the dark on the subject) .

Justin why so obsessed with Crowley. I see you two as opposite sides of the same coin.your blog should focus on your ideas or at the minimum the ideas of those you respect.

Last time Germany led the world in healthcare innovation? Last year (at least by one measure)...

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2008

Russ,

Consider it liveblogging shorthand. I should have taken a moment, though, to dig up the list of which I was thinking (see table here). Citing Bayer hardly proves anything, because it's a global company with affiliates and partners in the United States, and my point was that the U.S. health system (like the U.S. military system) is a prerequisite for many of the achievements elsewhere.

Trog,

No obsession. After setting up my video camera, I looked up and saw two figures in local blogging standing next to each other and thought it would make for a humorous picture.

Justin,

You said, "I should have taken a moment, though, to dig up the list of which I was thinking". Another instance of your excusing yourself through sloth or ignorance. Since most of your blogs exhibit one or the other there really is no need to apologize. Just subtitle each one with "Not well thought out" and you'll cover yourself accurately.
OldTimeLefty

Interesting stuff, but hardly convincing unless you don't dig into the history:
- CT scans were the result of US and British research... check
- MRIs were discovered by Felix Bloch (and an American who shared the Nobel Prize for Physics), a Jew who fled the Nazis to the US from... you guessed it, Germany!
- balloon angioplasty is a terrible example for this debate (the first angioplasty was performed by German physician Werner Forssmann), later to win the Nobel Prize (along with 2 Americans) for his contributions to medicine.
- Statins were discovered and initially researched in Japan and then picked up in the 1970s by Merck. Yep, the US subsidiary of the German firm.
- Mammography? Also discovered by a German, Albert Salomon, the first to use x-rays to study breast cancer and later expanded by research by German scientists, including W. Vogel, who described how x-rays could detect the difference between cancerous and noncancerous tissues.

Some proof!