I know....I know. But since my little plans for insurance have been foiled, I now have more options. Like, my husband has to quit working at some point (when he's sick)so I can prove us indigent enough to be accepted for medicare or medicade. Until that time occurs we are paying out of our pockets. And when it gets really bad I can apply with the state of NM as a home healthcare worker and can take care of my husband at home. Of course we are not going to be able to afford the place we are in, and downsize to a studio. Or I'm going to ******* and run ......and let my husband die on a beach in Mexico with some fucking dignity....haven't decided yet. It could go either way.

Maybe I can pay a Canadian on this board to marry him for a short period? Any takers?

Well- pm me if you are interested. :D

I bet it was on the internet. That's where I do all my research. And TV.

Hey, Cicero! Nice to "see" you again! Sorry as can be about your bad news. Damn, Damn, Damn, and Damn again. If you want, PM me with your phone number (I lost it), and maybe I can give you some advise re the SYSTEM :mad2:

To Clodfobble: Their are recruiting sites for EVERY profession. I bet they are even some for your line of work, whatever it is. Recruiting sites are not in themselves evidence of scarcity, although they can be an indicator of sorts. There's a big shortage of doctors of all kinds in the more rural areas, and I noticed many of the ads for OB-GYN's were for places like Bumfuck, Idaho (no offence to anyone here from Bumfuck).

To Lookout: I discovered an entire site on how doctors can disguise their assets - putting money in their children's names was only the most obvious of more devious plans that I didn't have the patience to read, not being a broker or a banker. And, anyhow, I don't have much sympathy for someone who whines about making a mere 150K/year. Sure, people in other professions can earn as much or more, so why didn't the folks who became Doc's just skip the entire Med School/Advanced Training treadmill, and go sell used cars, for example?

I would assume that at least some people are drawn to medicine for other reasons than money - reasons that cause them to suck it in and eke out an existance at a lowly 150K. And you never answered my question about what sort of society you prefer to live in. Is it one where Cicero's young husband dies of a deadly disease due to lack of medical care? If so, quite frankly, shame on you!

well, there you go, why don't you just ask when I quit beating my wife?

Do I wish ill upon Cicero or her family? absolutely not, it is horribly sad. Do I want to live with universal, tax payer funded medical care? hell, no. I prefer to live in a place where the market (consumer) decides the value of all goods and services. Supply and demand and all that.

Now if you want to talk about legitimate ways of sheltering money, i can do that all day - but this probably isn't the right thread.

I guess you just completely skimmed over the part where a huge portion of that salary, often over $100,000 a year, goes directly to paying for malpractice insurance? Hint: subtraction is the key here.

I think making refers to what he puts into his pocket AFTER expenses like insurance. But that's just a guess...

I am sure it works differently for different docs, but many times malpractice ins is paid by the practice.

It still comes out of your bottom line to the practice as potential income. It is an expense that must be paid every year.

Very true, but it is not necessarily a direct 1-to-1 correlation to a doc's salary unless it is a single doc in the practice.

Don't misunderstand me here. I think they deserve the money made. Some even deserve more than what they get once told by the insurance carriers what they get to make.

One practice I work for has 4 docs. They get all get a salary. Then they get a bonus based on the amount of work they do individually. It is a big busy practice and they all make a pretty good chunk of change. They all pay nearly 100k in malpractice each. The practice pays for it. The practice only gets income because of the docs. The docs are the only source of income, no docs, no income, no practice. If they did not have income to the business the business could not pay their malpractice, from their income. The higher the malpractice payment the less they have for other costs, including their own salary, and the salary of about 30 people who work for them.

That is what I am saying. I am not sure if you are agreeing with me or not.

Let's say the malpractice ins gets cut in half so they now have, just to simply things, an extra $200,000 in profit for the group. That doesn't mean that they will each get an extra $50,000. They probably would like to spend that money on extra support staff or new equipment or more current magazines in the waiting room. In my business, an extra $3,000,000 to our bottom line does not immediately get divided up among the managers and partners. It does increase our bonuses, but not by a total of $3,000,000.

I am not saying that it would absolutely not change how much money the doc takes home. It might. It might not. I was simply refuting Clod's claim that a large portion of a doc's 100K salary goes to pay for malpractice insurance.

We are in agreement. But when people pay out such large sums the only way they see it is that it is robbery, which it is in many cases.

...I was with you right up until the point where you said all your other points somehow refuted mine. :confused: Yes, malpractice can sometimes instead be a large portion of the practice's income, which directly affects how much money is left for doctors' salaries... I don't really see why that is anything other than a semantic difference. I agree with everything you have said.

48% of all counties in the US have no OB-GYNs at all, because either the hospitals or the doctors or both cannot afford to practice in those areas.

For the record, I did not make enough money this week. I'm not going to be thrown out of my apartment or anything, but business has been so bad recently at the shops. Of course, my boss recently bought a new minivan for his family, so he must be doing well.