Thank you for the info!

Thank you for the info!

Let me see if I get this, Deborah: The world is filled with selfish people and oligarchies, therefore, lawyers who feel underpaid (by the Government, that is the taxpayer) should be able to create their own cartels and coerce the Government (that is, their fellow citizens) into paying them more money. Ditto, for those poor starving doctors who feel underpaid under Medicaid. (Could it be that both professions charge too much to their non-govermental consumers?)
Most of the “ordinary citizens” you claim to be fighting for are taxpayers, and they and their elected officials get to decide how much assigned counsel are worth per hour, and whether it is worth it to increase the pay in order to get some very hypothetical improvement in quality. Ordinary citizens/taxpayers shouldn’t get squeezed for more money, because some lawyers aren’t enjoying the standard of living they feel should come with their degrees. If the Government finds out that it is offering to pay too little in the marketplace — which is only measured by how many takers it gets when each lawyer makes the decision unilaterally — it will have to pay more. To raise the fee when it is getting all the lawyers it wants, at an acceptable level of quality, would be highly irresponsible to the ordinary citizen who has to pay the bills.
You guys want your piece of the action — AND you want to feel like do-gooders. Unfortunately, antitrust prosecutors and courts have heard all the self-serving justifications, and have noticed how the bottom line is always that the doctors or lawyers believe everyone else would be much better off if only THEY got paid more money.
By the way, do you really believe that doctors should be able to form cartels to shakedown HMOs for higher fees? Just who ends up having to pay for those higher premiums? Yep, the ordinary citizen you claim to champion (in premiums or in lesser wages from their employers who foot the bill). Sure, doctors would love it if every insurer paid full price for every procedure or pill ordered by a doctor or wanted by a patient. But, we ordinary-citizen-patients really couldn’t afford that kind of medicine.
One last question: Is it any more likely that the average boycotting lawyer is driven less by greed than the average boycotting doctor?
One last thought: I’ll take the results of the marketplace, free from unlawful concerted activity, ANYday, over the results that we’d get if lawyers, doctors, or any other sellers got to get together and choose the prices they think are best for the good of society. Lots of these issues are hard, but this one is easy. (having said all this, after midnight, I’m going to take two weeks off)
p.s. The Mass. lawyers have a political problem. They need to find political solutions.

Let me see if I get this, Deborah: The world is filled with selfish people and oligarchies, therefore, lawyers who feel underpaid (by the Government, that is the taxpayer) should be able to create their own cartels and coerce the Government (that is, their fellow citizens) into paying them more money. Ditto, for those poor starving doctors who feel underpaid under Medicaid. (Could it be that both professions charge too much to their non-govermental consumers?)
Most of the “ordinary citizens” you claim to be fighting for are taxpayers, and they and their elected officials get to decide how much assigned counsel are worth per hour, and whether it is worth it to increase the pay in order to get some very hypothetical improvement in quality. Ordinary citizens/taxpayers shouldn’t get squeezed for more money, because some lawyers aren’t enjoying the standard of living they feel should come with their degrees. If the Government finds out that it is offering to pay too little in the marketplace — which is only measured by how many takers it gets when each lawyer makes the decision unilaterally — it will have to pay more. To raise the fee when it is getting all the lawyers it wants, at an acceptable level of quality, would be highly irresponsible to the ordinary citizen who has to pay the bills.
You guys want your piece of the action — AND you want to feel like do-gooders. Unfortunately, antitrust prosecutors and courts have heard all the self-serving justifications, and have noticed how the bottom line is always that the doctors or lawyers believe everyone else would be much better off if only THEY got paid more money.
By the way, do you really believe that doctors should be able to form cartels to shakedown HMOs for higher fees? Just who ends up having to pay for those higher premiums? Yep, the ordinary citizen you claim to champion (in premiums or in lesser wages from their employers who foot the bill). Sure, doctors would love it if every insurer paid full price for every procedure or pill ordered by a doctor or wanted by a patient. But, we ordinary-citizen-patients really couldn’t afford that kind of medicine.
One last question: Is it any more likely that the average boycotting lawyer is driven less by greed than the average boycotting doctor?
One last thought: I’ll take the results of the marketplace, free from unlawful concerted activity, ANYday, over the results that we’d get if lawyers, doctors, or any other sellers got to get together and choose the prices they think are best for the good of society. Lots of these issues are hard, but this one is easy. (having said all this, after midnight, I’m going to take two weeks off)
p.s. The Mass. lawyers have a political problem. They need to find political solutions.

While I greatly appreciate the time taken to respond to me, I still have trouble with your analysis, and the twisting of the public policy which does not, in fact, benefit the ordinary citizen in these examples. The most likely result will be decreased services from a dwindling pool and unmet needs in each of your examples as the real world operates.

One cannot provide a below cost service because the business ceases to exist.

In fact, true “competition” does not exist in the United States, but rather oligarchic profit sharing, piggishness iand criminality at the highest levels of corporate management, and extermination of independent business people in favor of various sorts of conglomerates who in fact, provide worse products and services at a higher price (not all prices are monetary, after all).

Deborah Sirotkin Butler, Esq.

While I greatly appreciate the time taken to respond to me, I still have trouble with your analysis, and the twisting of the public policy which does not, in fact, benefit the ordinary citizen in these examples. The most likely result will be decreased services from a dwindling pool and unmet needs in each of your examples as the real world operates.

One cannot provide a below cost service because the business ceases to exist.

In fact, true “competition” does not exist in the United States, but rather oligarchic profit sharing, piggishness iand criminality at the highest levels of corporate management, and extermination of independent business people in favor of various sorts of conglomerates who in fact, provide worse products and services at a higher price (not all prices are monetary, after all).

Deborah Sirotkin Butler, Esq.