Change!… Team Obama to Doctors: Start Working Weekends
Posted by Jim Hoft on Wednesday, October 6, 2010, 5:36 AM
Obama and Pelosi know best.
(Cartoon by Steve Breen as found on Townhall.com 7/23/09)
More Hope and Change…
Team Obama wants doctors to start working weekends.
Former failed White House economic advisor Peter Orszag demanded this in his op-ed today in The New York Times:
Doctors, like most people, don’t love to work weekends, and they probably don’t enjoy being evaluated against their peers. But their industry can no longer afford to protect them from the inevitable. Imagine a drugstore open only five days a week, or a television network that didn’t measure its ratings. Improving the quality of health care and reducing its cost will require that doctors make many changes — but working weekends and consenting to quality management are two clear ones.
That’s why an effort at New York University Langone Medical Center to institute both of these changes is so important. If it succeeds, it will help point the way to the health care system of the future.
First, weekends. It’s never good to be hospitalized, but you really don’t want to be hospitalized on a weekend. There are fewer doctors around, and people admitted on Saturdays and Sundays fare relatively poorly.
…Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to schedule your elective surgery on a Saturday if you wanted? Most hospitals don’t offer that option.
And then there are the economics of a $750 billion-a-year industry letting its capacity sit idle a quarter or more of the time. If hospitals were in constant use, costs would fall as expensive assets like operating rooms and imaging equipment were used more fully.
That’s one way to fix the doctor shortage created by Obamacare – work doctors to death.
All American Blogger has more on the proposed schedule.
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Published May 24, 2012 at 8:46 pm - 91 Comments
jonnot commented:
This from a regime whose chief can’t even manage a 5-day week? Are they serious?
Mike in VA commented:
How would increasing services that the gov’t doesn’t reimburse enough for already going to decrease costs to stay in business?????
Just_Saying commented:
After working for years to get my medical license, and working for myself, if I want to take weekends off, that’s my business.
Stay out of my life, Government!!
.
squeaky commented:
speaking with no experience in the matter, isn’t becoming a doctor difficult? you don’t exactly roll them out of the local skills center. i wonder if the foreign doctors will find working here no longer lucrative and decide to head home? oh oh, back to the skill center scenerio. you don’t have to deny health care – you just have to be sloppy when providing it.
tarpon commented:
Oabam voters need to feel the love and start working.
Simon commented:
Why is it Democrats are always FOR the free market in a bad example?
kate commented:
Comparing an individual to a business is ridiculous. A pharmacy has a staff. Some will work on the weekends, some will have it off, thus enabling the pharmacy to be open and never closed. A single human doesn’t have that kind of endurance. Not even in the gulags of Siberia. People need time off, bodies and minds must recuperate. If this Orszag nutjobby is saying a 40 hr week for all so weekends will lose their import and everyone is rotated around endlessly, that’s doable (under government duress). Otherwise this is so stupid a 6 year old could detect the holes in this plan.
Granny commented:
Obviously this idiot has no conception of the number and variety of highly educated personnel required to keep a hospital operational. Doctors are the mere tip of the ice berg. You have scientists, X-ray people, nursing staff, lab staff and much, much more. All of those people must be paid. And there are not enough of them to go around, even if you make every single license-holding individual with any connection whatever to medicine work a 60 hour week. (Which would then require them all to be paid overtime.)
And there are other issues. No surgeon can perform more than a certain number of operations in a given week without putting his patients at grave risk due to his own overwork. We cannot allow this anymore than we do not allow a truck driver to be out on the road 80 hours a week. In the medical lab there are certain critical tests that a given individual is allowed to perform only just so many of per week – BY LAW. And even if you found enough X-ray techs to do any and all of the various scans that now count as X-ray on demand 24/7/365, each one of those requires a licensed MD specialist to read and interpret. Your GP might be able to tell that you’ve broken your leg, but he cannot interpret a PET.
And on top of all of that, for the most part MDs, no matter what their specialty, are for the most part NOT employees but independent business owners. They are associated with a hospital, not employees of a hospital. Since when do we dictate when a business – any business – will be open or closed?
This is exactly the kind of mess that you get when you have nincompoops who know nothing whatever about medicine other than what they see on TV talking about policy.
This is EXACTLY the mess tha
Simon commented:
And just before they advocate regulating it to death?
Pete Kent commented:
Obama is just trying to make sure he has a clear shot at getting his preferred tee time on Saturdays!
petekent01 (on twitter)
oldguy commented:
If this former economic advisor were a doctor he would be labeled a quack.
Ann commented:
Isn’t this man supposed to be an economist?
A hospital during the week needs massive numbers of support staff to run. On weekdays you have many more employees at work than on weekends–and not just medical staff–reception staff, billing staff, imaging techs, transporters, cleaning staff, security staff, parking staff, even the cafeteria runs at a higher level.
All of that costs money. This is why libraries shut down on weekends–every day you’re open costs money.
“And then there are the economics of a $750 billion-a-year industry letting its capacity sit idle a quarter or more of the time. If hospitals were in constant use, costs would fall as expensive assets like operating rooms and imaging equipment were used more fully.”
This is just so completely stupid. Empty operating rooms don’t cost money! No gauze is being used when it’s idle, no medication, no nurses have to be paid, no one has to clean it up between surgeries, no one has to prep patients and escort them to the room. You can even turn the lights off and save electricity.
Are people going without surgeries today, because they can’t get in on the weekends? Are surgeries not happening, that otherwise would? That’s the only way additional money could be made. Simply stretching out the current load over 7 days instead of 5 is going to significantly raise costs.
Doctors and hospitals are in business to make money (even non-profits have to stay in business). If there was a magical pot of gold to be had for working on the weekend, we wouldn’t need the brilliant Orzag to tell them so.
Liz commented:
Another example of a bureaucrat who has no real world experience.
Hmm – increase work load and require more quality control. Demand more elective surgery on weekends while telling people that we use too many services. (remember “let’s give granny the little pain pill instead of hip surgery”).
Does he realize that there is usually one surgical room out of service at any point of time – to clean, repair, maintain? What about other parts of the hospital?
And, people who come in on weekends are usually pretty sick – that’s why they are going to a hospital!!! Accidents, heart attacks, sudden illnesses. Except for small rural areas, there is usually a fully operational trauma hospital available. And there are always on call teams for emergencies.
Ed commented:
Doctor’s to Team Obama….F.U.
Luna Sea commented:
Who the heck does this dweeb think he is? FYI you dweebnozzle, most doctors are on call 24/7 such as obstetricians, heart surgeons, orthopods, neurologists. My brother is a surgeon and hasn’t been at Christmas dinner in the last 12 years because he’s on call.
Mr. Failure skinny dweeb weasle should keep his hole closed unless he can speak about something he understands. Buttmunch.
Bill Fabrizio commented:
The Administration is apparently interested in adding doctors and nurses to the federal minimum wage category!
Dee commented:
I spent 20 years working evenings, nights, weekends and holidays while my family went on with their lives. I am not returning to that misery.
Luna Sea commented:
Hey Orzsag… Where do you stand on making the Welfare Queens and Pimps work or volunteer for say 20 hours a week?
You know, the ones on Medicaid who swamp emergency rooms and take ambulance rides to the hospital for colds and stuffy noses?
Nozzle.
Auntie Em commented:
Everytime a liberal opens its mouth, I just want to scream and strangle Joe Biden. Why won’t they just shut up?
Warthog commented:
I have an idea, let’s let market forces settle this! Say, if a doctor keeps his office open on a weekend, he gets to charge more for the convenience. People will either pay or not pay depending on their wants/needs.
(I dunno’ I’m a wacky radical that way…)
midwestengr commented:
This nutjob should write an op-ed on how much money could be saved if welfare recipients worked some weekends to get their checks.
midwestengr commented:
Better yet, how about those collecting money from the gov’t, work 40 hours a week.
Sen. Fuller Bull - D commented:
RE: the cartoon on this post – I would change the caption to Nurse Wretched.
Militant Conservative commented:
The amount of the welfare check divided by the minimum wage per hour equals how much time you need to work each week to collect. This would incentivise welfare receipients to aspire for more since they have to work. powder is dry.
Dennis commented:
The only way they can enforce this nonsense, is to mandate working days and hours. In other words, they need to be drafted by the gummint. Do we really want a cadre of draftee doctors?
You fight this by “working to rule.” You obey all the rules. That way, nothing gets done. Do we really want doctors working to rule? This is a guaranteed way to reduce us to Turd World medical standards.
This has got to be the stupidest president in history. Or the most evil.
Mike O commented:
The guy has no clue. I know very few doctors who DON’T work some weekends. Not the ones involved in day-to-day patient care. Maybe he should take the late-night calls, the interrupted vacations, the family events missed for a few years to ‘walk a mile in their shoes’ before he cast stones.
midwestengr commented:
MC #25.
That would be cruel, just cruel I tell ya!
/sarc
Chisum commented:
“One of the consequences of such notions as “entitlements” is that people who have contributed nothing to society feel that society owes them something, apparently just for being nice enough to grace us with their presence.”
-Thomas Sowell-
Big Mo commented:
From the excerpt:
“And then there are the economics of a $750 billion-a-year industry letting its capacity sit idle a quarter or more of the time. If hospitals were in constant use, costs would fall as expensive assets like operating rooms and imaging equipment were used more fully.”
What planet are these clowns living on?
laddy commented:
Many family practice docs are part of a hospital group and these hospital groups run outlying clinics open extended hours in the evenings and weekends to take care of patients with nonemergency “emergencies” or work schedules that do not allow them to see a doc during normal office hours. It seems like nearly everyone in politics is an imbecile and uninformed which is why government needs to stay the hell out of our lives.
StrangernFiction commented:
But don’t call it tyranny, because if you do you’re a radical.
seven commented:
Obama is clueless. Dumb as a box full of Joe Bidens. He needs to worry about getting jobs for the unemployed instead of docs who he cheats on reimbursement.
AuntieMadder commented:
Auntie Em
October 6th, 2010 | 7:33 am | #20
Everytime a liberal opens its mouth, I just want to scream and strangle Joe Biden.
Teehee. Good one.
AuntieMadder commented:
The graphic accompanying this blog post is a hideous sight. I’d jump out the window of my hospital room if I saw that coming toward me.
free` commented:
This is just a small step on the way to government mandating what job or profession you will have.
Checkers commented:
I have been a Family Practice Doc in a small community for now 20 years. Weekends? Ask my wife and kids about weekends. Dad is always on the phone or at the hospital or otherwise “on call”, this after staying till 9 or 10 pm at the office daily to finish charts and messages.
I wish I could work “weekends”. It would be less than my current 24/7 job duties!
Oh, I allow myself 1 week of vacation a year at the ocean with the family. That is all I have gotten for the past 20 years. You see, if you are in business and pay yourself then vacation is basically time away without pay. Thus, no 4 week vacations for me.
Oh, and I have never golfed in my life.
tango commented:
hmmm. So if doctors have to work weekends, wouldn’t they then take 2 other days off a week? And when there’s no or lessened number of doctors working during the week, operating rooms will still sit empty or be underused. How will scheduling operations on Saturday and Sunday ensure more access to patients if they then aren’t scheduled on Thursday and Friday? So unless Mr. Orszag expects doctors to work a 6th or 7th day every week, the same number of doctors, procedures, operations, tests, appointments, etc, will be the same if they work weekends as right now.
Harrison commented:
It’s not “Team Obama” because he doesn’t work for Obama anymore and people who go to the hospital on the weekends don’t fare well compared to those during the week.
If doctors want to work weekends let em but I don’t see how this makes Obama forcing doctors to work on weekends.
Militant Conservative commented:
I work in the OR every day. It took me 20 years to get to a vendor position to NOT have to work weekends/holidays/on call. Best damn job I have ever had and someone else can have it when I die.
As for the Doctors. They deserve every damn dime they make and more. The time and skill level is phenominal. I for one do not want their life, it’s a living hell. Sister and dad both are Doc’s. These burocrats are beyond lost and uninformed. powder is dry and so a politician brains.
AuntieMadder commented:
I don’t know about you, but I’d prefer not to be examined, much less operated on, by a tired, overworked doctor. I’d prefer that whomever goes digging around in my innards or is writing prescriptions for drugs for me to take, be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, so to speak.
Contessa61 commented:
YES. doctors need to work weekends, nights and holidays until they are 70 so they can pay big taxes.
These taxes support public school teachers salaries and allow them to retire in their 50′s after working 10 months a year without working any weekends and holdiays.
and support police who retire in their 40′s with million dollar pensions.
Contessa61 commented:
OBAMACARE = DNR (DO NOT RESUSITATE)
Contessa61 commented:
Obama is clueless. Dumb as a box full of Joe Bidens
Thanks for the chuckle, SEVEN
Dr. Ed commented:
This was from a NYT column by Peter Orzag, recently departed OMB Dir for the Obama administration. As a thirty plus year physician, I initially took offense to the subject matter and obvious unfamiliarity with any facts related to what he was so facil in writing about. Then I realized that this was the architect of the stimulus, budget(sort of) and much of the financial shenanigans of the last two years and I realized he has a track record of not knowing what he’s talking about. Ignore him, just like you would an impudent child.
AuntieMadder commented:
Contessa61 @ #45 – If the doctors do as poor a job as the teachers who, it appears, will earn as much or dang near it, we’re all screwed.
Disclaimer: I’m speaking of public school teachers in general, the majority. I’m aware that there are some good teachers among them, as rare as they may be.
Bruce Bodner commented:
Yes, the physicians already have a 54 hour work week on average (Dorsey. JAMA, Vol 290(9).Sept 3, 2003.1174.) They are used to it so it should be no problem them ramping up another 15 hours per week. Or we just produce 28% more docs. And we pay them less to keep it budget neutral. Makes perfect sense. And this is from a guy touted as some sort of genius with budget planning, math, so on. Believe it people, “Government is not the solution, Government is the problem” Ronald Reagan.
Ben commented:
You bunch of spoiled doctors. “Stay out of my business government”? This appears to me they are simply stating the obvious: Doctors are more accessible on the weekends.
Increasing accessibility alleviates the consequences of a shortage without having to increase the amount of workers. Close on Monday and Tuesday, there isn’t a law saying you have to be open those days. But no, you can’t take any advice from anyone, because you’re right.
Yeah, right. You’re a bunch of children. Whiny, spoiled, selfish. Reading through these comments disgust me. You take these statements out of context almost on purpose it seems just so you can feel “correct”.