Update: McCain Selects Gov. Sarah Palin as Running Mate

You're speaking out of turn when you start talking about my employer and what they receive from the University or the state, or whoever.

TUHS received no funding from Temple University last year. NONE.

The university supports the medical school, which is not a part of Temple University Health System.

Can this problem be solved? Maybe. But not without TONS of pain, time, and money. Obama underestimates all of it, and drastically.

I don't think so, in what way is your employer and the university affiliation/relationship fruitful?

You got to have birth pains when having a baby. I would imagine nothing less when it comes to fixing the problems plagued by the health care system.

Record breaking??? How can you beat a record in a speech??? Was her's the quickest speech ever.

I think he means "first ever" as in the first time a woman has accepted the republican nomination for vice president.

Buster in '12. He doesn't even need a VP, he can be both president and vice president.

I don't think so, in what way is your employer and the university affiliation/relationship fruitful?

You got to have birth pains when having a baby. I would imagine nothing less when it comes to fixing the problems plagued by the health care system.

It has become in no way fruitful for my employer. We have begun exploring the possiblity of divorcing ourselves from the affiliation with the Medical School.

Currently, the Medical School's physicians and faculty train their med students within our hospital. Because doctors are busy teaching students, they are not out finding as many new patients as a private doctor would. So their productivity, in terms of generating hospital revenue, has always lagged that of private docs. As a result, they have needed subsidies from my employer to break even, and keep the Medical School and their physicians financially solvent. We have been willing to provide this subsidy in the past because replacing these guys with private or employed docs would be just as costly, if not more so. But with physician reimbursement barely growing over the last few years, and their expenses skyrocketing, they have needed an increased subsidy from us. Three years ago, we gave the Med School about 30 million per year, now it's up to 80 million.

We're at the point where it no longer makes sense to allow these doctors to teach students within our hospitals, and we've begun exploring ways to divorce ourselves from the medical school and employ a private physician model or an employed physician model instead.

Schneed you're wrong. You don't know what you are talking about. Insurance comopanies are bad. In no way are they good at all. Baaahhhhhhhhh!!

It's profit that has motivated the great advances we have in medicine today.

Please tell me one technological or medical advance that has come from Government....you might find one or two rare instances, but innovation comes from the private sector and their motive is profit.

What great technological or medical innovations come from Communist countries, few or none because there is little to no profit motive to innovate.

EDIT: Improving patient care and service are also motivated by profit. If there is no profit motive, organizations will do the minimum to just get by.

First of all, when I say that some things should not be motivated by profit, I do not imply that Government is the fix. There are more than two sides to this discussion.

The point I was trying to make is this:

Businesses seek to maximize profit at all costs. This leads to unethical behavior -- something I'd like to keep out of health care.

@Schneed: you make it sound like hospitals are happy just breaking even. If that's the case, why would they even be in business? Isn't the point of a business to make profit?

It has become in no way fruitful for my employer. We have begun exploring the possiblity of divorcing ourselves from the affiliation with the Medical School.

Currently, the Medical School's physicians and faculty train their med students within our hospital. Because doctors are busy teaching students, they are not out finding as many new patients as a private doctor would. So their productivity, in terms of generating hospital revenue, has always lagged that of private docs. As a result, they have needed subsidies from my employer to break even, and keep the Medical School and their physicians financially solvent. We have been willing to provide this subsidy in the past because replacing these guys with private or employed docs would be just as costly, if not more so. But with physician reimbursement barely growing over the last few years, and their expenses skyrocketing, they have needed an increased subsidy from us. Three years ago, we gave the Med School about 30 million per year, now it's up to 80 million.

We're at the point where it no longer makes sense to allow these doctors to teach students within our hospitals, and we've begun exploring ways to divorce ourselves from the medical school and employ a private physician model or an employed physician model instead.

Would it be a fair assessment to say your hospitals and the current health care system at large is failing as a business model and it/they can't seem to coupe with external pressures?

First of all, when I say that some things should not be motivated by profit, I do not imply that Government is the fix. There are more than two sides to this discussion.

The point I was trying to make is this:

Businesses seek to maximize profit at all costs. This leads to unethical behavior -- something I'd like to keep out of health care.

@Schneed: you make it sound like hospitals are happy just breaking even. If that's the case, why would they even be in business? Isn't the point of a business to make profit?

I pray their number one goal is saving lives not making a profit.

Would it be a fair assessment to say your hospitals and the current health care system at large is failing as a business model and it/they can't seem to coupe with external pressures?

No it wouldn't be fair to say that at all.

Most hospitals are staying open and competitive within the United States. How they cope with "external pressures" (aka growing costs of drugs and malpractice) is by demanding higher reimbursement rates from the insurance companies.

The insurance companies then are forced to pass that cost along to the patients in the form of higher insurance rates. The higher the rates go, the fewer patients can afford health insurance.

Is that good? Not at all. But someone will have to explain to me how using taxpayer money to provide coverage for all Americans will slow the growth of those "external pressures" - drug costs and malpractice expenses.

Just because you get all Americans covered with health insurance doesn't mean the underlying cost of administering healthcare will be affected.

There's nothing wrong with making profit. You can save lives and make a profit. It's just that the system is messed up because of costs and the uninsured.