SCOTUS in Mayo Clinic v. IRS

 

Health Train is back on the track again.  In another round of health care complications where getting a medical education turns into a high priced legal venture for one of the largest most famous medical clinics in the world.  You can bet your bottom dollar this had much more to do with cash flow for Mayo than whether the relatively less well off junior MDs could escape Uncle Sam’s money sucking vacuum machine.  More about Complications here.

I found some commentary on the WSJ blog on Health

 

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• workaholic wrote:

As interns in the 70’s, we worked 128 hour weeks and loved it. We are graying now and find the trainees to be eager but lazy, not committed to their patients, while very committed to their CPOEs, EHRs, and mobile devices, as the patient lies in pain and poop. We were paid a fixed amount per year, period, with weekends on and two weeks of vacation when someone else told us to take it.

There is a reason why the Hopkins is so great. I do not remember if they took out social security, I will check my stubs (I am a packrat) but if they did, I will seek a refund plus interest.

• Anonymous wrote:

Perhaps they can be employees for the purpose of IRS but not employees for the purpose of some different state laws. Part of the Supreme Court’s point is that it will defer to the reasoned and careful judgment of the agency (here, IRS) when there is not some compelling reason to reverse the position of the agency. This creates a public climate and legal climate where irrational decisions of agencies can be corrected, but, all the decisions of all government agencies are not constantly being revised over and over every time a judge somewhere entertains an alternative opinion. I agree with the IRS that the job has most of the characteristics of employment, not those of being “a student.”

• Academic wrote:

This has other potential negative consequences. If residents are considered employees than there are overtime rules, and limits on work hours that could be applied depending on the states laws. This could mean that in the future newer physicians will have less time spent in training. Not a pretty picture, especially for surgeons where hours, repetition and numbers of procedures makes a huge difference in ability to perform a task correctly.

 

SCOTUS blog goes into further analysis and arguments:

 

How can the Web be used for Health Health Habits.?

Now for the real bread and butter.  I just attended a webinar from Health 2.0 where participants are meeting t he Health 2.0 challenge thrown down by Matt Holt of the Health Care Blog.

One of the solutions can be found at :  Healthy People .