Forget gambling — Prince George’s should go all in on health care (Baltimore: health insurance, student loans)

[UrbanScholar]

Read this opinion piece in the WP by a PG delegate. I expressed my opinion there but thought it would be interesting to get others opinions here. What are your thoughts

Forget gambling — Prince George’s should go all in on health care - The Washington Post

[justtitans]

Originally Posted by UrbanScholar

Read this opinion piece in the WP by a PG delegate. I expressed my opinion there but thought it would be interesting to get others opinions here. What are your thoughts

Forget gambling — Prince George’s should go all in on health care - The Washington Post

I think it's a decent idea but like one of the commenters said, you have a lot of uninsured people that have to be addressed. That is what's wrong with the current system. They also need to build a health system that addresses the population. A lot of the offices in the county are overflowing with patients because there aren't enough doctors around (it also has to do with the doctors accepting too many patients). It also wouldn't hurt to have more urgent cares. Prince William County just built a stand alone Emergency Center that deals with Lake Ridge residents and takes pressure off of Sentara Northern Virginia Medical Center (aka Potomac Hospital). That is something that we could use more here.

[UrbanScholar]

Originally Posted by pgtitans

I think it's a decent idea but like one of the commenters said, you have a lot of uninsured people that have to be addressed. That is what's wrong with the current system. They also need to build a health system that addresses the population. A lot of the offices in the county are overflowing with patients because there aren't enough doctors around (it also has to do with the doctors accepting too many patients). It also wouldn't hurt to have more urgent cares. Prince William County just built a stand alone Emergency Center that deals with Lake Ridge residents and takes pressure off of Sentara Northern Virginia Medical Center (aka Potomac Hospital). That is something that we could use more here.

You bring up some very substantive points. I especially like the concept of additional specialty facilities (emergency, etc.). As far as the doctor patient ratio, that echoes two issues currently facing the american healthcare system. The shortage of doctor going into the field due to rising cost, shrinking profits, and escalated lawsuits have made that field not as desirable as it used to be. The bureaucratic red tape of health insurance nowadays has placed the nails in the coffin of healthcare and have made systems like Prince George's County undesirable.

[Zimar]

Originally Posted by UrbanScholar

The shortage of doctor going into the field due to rising cost, shrinking profits, and escalated lawsuits have made that field not as desirable as it used to be.

This is actually not true, but the rest of your post is on point. My family has a lot of doctors. While they don't make quite as much as they used to, most specialties other than primary care make an average of more than $200,000 a year. Not exactly a bad living. Also, there are more than enough students who want to enter medical school*, and I can tell you that it is exceptionally competitive, and the U.S. has not kept up by opening more medical schools.** What a family member has told me that the trend is where she lives, is instead of owning their own practices, doctors are now increasingly working as employees in their hospitals. That way, the hospital takes care of all the insurance and liability mess and just pays them a salary.

* I am an embittered former pre-med lol.
** I'm from an immigrant community and I have a ton of family and friends who are foreign-educated doctors. Because there is a shortage, America just takes the rest of the world's best and brightest. Go us!

[HurricaneDC]

This dumb county can't even build a god damn supermarket without jumping through a million hoops (see the Whole Foods in Hyattsville project). We wouldn't see anything from investing in healthcare for at least 15 years.

[UrbanScholar]

Originally Posted by Zimar

This is actually not true, but the rest of your post is on point. My family has a lot of doctors. While they don't make quite as much as they used to, most specialties other than primary care make an average of more than $200,000 a year. Not exactly a bad living. Also, there are more than enough students who want to enter medical school*, and I can tell you that it is exceptionally competitive, and the U.S. has not kept up by opening more medical schools.** What a family member has told me that the trend is where she lives, is instead of owning their own practices, doctors are now increasingly working as employees in their hospitals. That way, the hospital takes care of all the insurance and liability mess and just pays them a salary.

* I am an embittered former pre-med lol.
** I'm from an immigrant community and I have a ton of family and friends who are foreign-educated doctors. Because there is a shortage, America just takes the rest of the world's best and brightest. Go us!

To clarify, I was referring to the decline of primary care physicians since they are the ones seen by most people. if you are a specialist you will definitely do well and 200K does sound great on the surface but when you combine student loans for med school, insurance for lawsuits, regulated fee schedules, and the reduction in student focusing on STEM education. it impacts the field significantly. I am basing my position on an article I read a few years ago which stated that primary care is having a significant crisis since fewer people are entering the field. You're correct that a many foreign student come to med school here and stay afterwards. The problem is that many would not choose PG to practice (be it due to reputation or better salaries elsewhere)

[justtitans]

Originally Posted by HurricaneDC

This dumb county can't even build a god damn supermarket without jumping through a million hoops (see the Whole Foods in Hyattsville project). We wouldn't see anything from investing in healthcare for at least 15 years.

That situation explains this county in a nutshell. You have a very unintelligent and not very well thought out plan for development and then you have developers surprised that residents aren't going for it. If they built this same development in an area that had more roads to support it or even a metro station, this wouldn't be an issue. This happens far too often here with development. It's rare to see something planned out well in this county where a majority of the community is in support. Too much corruption and the public trust is gone.

[bowian]

Originally Posted by Zimar

This is actually not true, but the rest of your post is on point. My family has a lot of doctors. While they don't make quite as much as they used to, most specialties other than primary care make an average of more than $200,000 a year. Not exactly a bad living. Also, there are more than enough students who want to enter medical school*, and I can tell you that it is exceptionally competitive, and the U.S. has not kept up by opening more medical schools.** What a family member has told me that the trend is where she lives, is instead of owning their own practices, doctors are now increasingly working as employees in their hospitals. That way, the hospital takes care of all the insurance and liability mess and just pays them a salary.

* I am an embittered former pre-med lol.
** I'm from an immigrant community and I have a ton of family and friends who are foreign-educated doctors. Because there is a shortage, America just takes the rest of the world's best and brightest. Go us!

As I understand it, the shortage is with primary care physicians, while the specialists fare better because they make more money and are more in demand. Many insurance plans allow patients to go straight to a specialist without a referral from a primary (an option I love, because all the primaries want to do is refer you out anyway, in my experience, except for the pediatricians) One of my doctors told me she disuaded her daughter from attending med school and instead encouraged her to be a nurse. Reason being the costs and difficulty sustaining a solid practice. As she explained it, there is a decreasing need for so many doctors, and nurses will always have work. I guess it depends on your experience as a doctor.

Doctors who have crowded waitrooms and double-booked appointments seem to be squeezing in a lot of patients to make as much money as possible. Also, their hours of operation have shrunk, with fewer options for evening and Saturday hours. The "urgent care" facilities take up the slack, but the copay is higher and such facilities seem limited in what they offer. There used to be walk-in clinics back in the day, and I see a return of a similar type of practice in Maryland.

[bowian]

Originally Posted by UrbanScholar

Read this opinion piece in the WP by a PG delegate. I expressed my opinion there but thought it would be interesting to get others opinions here. What are your thoughts

Forget gambling — Prince George’s should go all in on health care - The Washington Post

Your comment on the article (or what I assume is your comment) is spot on. Her ideas are very good, but we have to deal with the substantial uninsured population that accesses our hospitals (mainly at PG Hospital, but to some degree Southern Maryland Hospital and probably the others too). In addition to related businesses and practices feeding into the proposed revamped hospital system, I would consider opening a satellite campus of the UMD med school in PG, which would attract students who don't want to commute or live in Baltimore.

I also agree with having multiple streams of development.

[adelphi_sky]

Originally Posted by HurricaneDC

This dumb county can't even build a god damn supermarket without jumping through a million hoops (see the Whole Foods in Hyattsville project). We wouldn't see anything from investing in healthcare for at least 15 years.

The problem is that it is more than a supermarket. It is about a HUGE mixed-use development on property currently zoned for single family. Of course some people aren't too cool with that. If it was just the grocery store, I'm not so sure there would be such pushback.