from the WSJ

I originally wrote this 7-19-07 on another blog, but thought I should republish it today. from the Wall Street Journal.

today I was reading an article on the state of medicaid. "Note to Medicaid Patients: the Doctor won't see you." On the contrary is the following physician, as quoted from the article,

"I don't want to pull any punches taking care of people," says Dr. Tynes, "I'm a spiritual man, not a business man." In his waiting room, gospel movies play round the clock on a DVD player and patients can sign up for his weight-loss coaching.

On a recent day, 22 out of the 37 patients were on Medicaid, and another 12 had Medicare or other government-sponsored insurance. Only three had commercial health coverage. Dr. Tynes tries to make ends meet with a bare-bones staff. He has also cultivated a loyal patient base by offering specialty services such as sexual-dysfunction treatment and marriage counseling. Depending on how good business is, he tries to pay himself an after-tax salary of $500 to $750 a week to support his family of five children.

But three times so far this year, he's forgone his biweekly paycheck to keep the practice out of the red. Last year, he cut his office staff from seven to four people. "We [primary-care physicians] are the ones keeping this Medicaid system together, but we're the ones getting killed," he said.


My thoughts. A) He went to med school, he could make a killing but to actually forgo the wealth is unusual. plus, he left a salaried position (a.k.a, decent paycheck every week) to run his own clinic in Benton Harbor. also, in reference to the quote, "I'm a spiritual man, not a business man," can one be both? This follows some thoughts with "the princess goes to Hollywood" post: can Christians live in Bel-Air?

B) $500 to $750/week to support a family of five! I can hardly believe that. let me state the obvious: most doctors don't think that way. Medicaid doctors should be salaried by the government, funded by taxes, the same as public school teachers since they're doing a service to society.