The Flinchum File

Thoughtful Economic Analysis and Existential Opinions
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The World’s Worst Job ?

Society gives a great deal of respect to doctors, and they deserve it!  They spend many years studying our bodies, our ailments, and our medical needs.  However, I just attended a class on medical insurance and now wonder whether the practice of medicine is really more difficult than medical insurance.

For example, a doctor must learn that the gall bladder produces bile that empties into the small intestine which helps breakdown fat consumed by the patient.  A medical insurance analyst must ask (1) if the patient was physically located in a covered state, (2) if the patient had the right policy for that particular coverage, (3) how much did the patient earn, (4) how much income did the patient’s household earn, (5) if the patient is behind on any health care insurance penalty payments, and (6) it goes on . . . to some point where it becomes absurd.

Actually, a doctor needs to learn the basic role of gall bladder only once.  The medical insurance analyst must update their myriad rules every year.

More nuanced, a doctor learns the way the body is organized, which is mostly logical and magical.  The medical insurance analyst learns to be abide by rules, which are mostly arbitrary and maddening.  Existentialists abhor both absurd and arbitrary!

I would rather be either a doctor or a garbage collector but certainly not a medical insurance analyst!  They have my sympathy . . .