..a pretty amazing chat about how the future is in the hands of the youth.

To quote the great modern day philosopher George Carlin from It's Bad For You:

Children are not our future, and I can prove it with my usual, flawless logic. Children can't be our future, because by the time the future arrives, they won't be children anymore, so BLOW ME!

Fact is, sorry your wife will recieve 20% less on Medicare repayments. That's not good for business. But on the other hand, there are reasons that rates are what they are, and the percentage cut is a correction. You could be correct that, if we saw an itemized bill for: Medication, Admin (push) fee, syringe, cost of MD ordering, DXing, associating DX and Med, MA performing act of injectable med, etc, that the Medicare reimbursment won't cover it. I don't know that, but you might be right. Having said that, untill I can see an itemized list of all costs and expenses in your wife's office, I withhold my pity for her finances.

I hope this doesn't come across as personal, but like you, I know a thing or two about medical finances and payments, and I do feel for the medical staff (myself among them) and want them all to get properly paid, but I also see the bigger picture of what are the reasons for costs being what they are (lawsuits are only one small piece of the pie, much to the shock of FOX viewers) and while Medicare might pay less, things balance out in the long run.

At least - that's how it works where I work - which is a big healthcare organization. Perhaps I'm not being empatheitc enough to a single Provider? With the organization I work for, the loss of medicare payments is more than balanced out by the extra income we're anticipating from all the extra patients. Etc.

I don't mean to brag, but I just got a raise this week. Things don't look grim here.

And then... take it a step further. Funny isn't it, this game, that me, a proponent of the plan, is happy about it and is benefitting financially and personally from it, while you, an opponent of the plan, is financially and personally hurt by the plan. Funny.

Or fitting? I don't know...

With the organization I work for, the loss of medicare payments is more than balanced out by the extra income we're anticipating from all the extra patients.

So, you are happy to work on more patients for less pay per patient? I bet you're really popular with management.

Keep in mind, we're only getting less from medicare, and it's just a
price correction. It's like how the rich are claiming that their taxes
are being raised, when while, yes, it is literally raised to what it was
before now, in reality, it is a return to what it was before.

It's just how you see things... says this fan of Obi Wan Kenobi...

Wait. I'm Irish-Mexican, does that count?

Oh good.  After all that socialized medicine talk, I was terrified you were one of them commies.

Wait, Mexicans aren't commies are they?  I always get confused about that kind of stuff. 

And when I say "America", I mostly mean, you know, California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas - land that was Mexico until about 150 years ago.