I’ve worked my entire adult life in two industries – medicine and the financial sector (specifically commercial multifamily real estate). While the two are very different, I have noticed a similarity…let me explain.
The emergency department is a microcosm of society. All types of people from various walks of life utilize the E.R.
I thrived in that environment for years, doing my best for everyone I met. I loved patient care, but I didn’t necessarily love every patient.
After all, suffering can sometimes bring out the worst in people. And in the process of easing that suffering, I’ve been punched, spit on, and called every name in the book. I’ve cared for wonderful people, but I’ve also cared for racists, murderers, and even politicians.
Regardless, I never let any character deficiencies stand in the way of my duties. No matter what, I always tried to do my best for those in my care.
That’s why I’ve always found it personally repugnant when administrators asked me for favoritism.
From time to time, while I was working in the E.R., an administrator would approach me to say that a V.I.P. was in the department. Typically, it was a prominent member of the community who happened to be a hospital donor.
I’d be told of their philanthropic nature as well as some seven-figure number that they’ve donated to the hospital. How the administrator knew this person was even in the emergency department is beyond me. But, I suspect that donor had called in a favor.
Then the inevitable request would come that I make sure they were well taken care of. What does that even mean? Did he want me to give the person a back rub, wash their car, and paint their toenails? Did he think that I hold back on patient care and reserve my best for only the rich, famous, and exceptionally beautiful people?
It was so offensive!
Now I’m not minimizing the importance of donors. After all, they help bring new facilities and equipment to the hospital that we’d otherwise have to do without. Their money does an immense amount of good and they deserve to be recognized for it.
They just don’t deserve better care.
All patients, regardless of age, gender, or ethnicity, deserve the very best care. There isn’t anything more to give. And the insinuation that I do so was outrageous to say the least.
It’s not like this happened frequently, but it did occur enough to make me cringe every time I saw this particular administrator. In fact, this isn’t the first time I’ve written about him.
Why couldn’t he just slither back upstairs to his office and leave me alone? I never told him how to do his job, why did he feel compelled to tell me how to care for patients?
And if he was going to interject himself into patient care, why didn’t he take the time to advise me on how to care for prostitutes, drug addicts, and homeless vets? Why was it that he only felt it necessary to advocate for the donor class?
Now, as much as I despised this guy, I also realize that he represents a disturbing truth in medicine. That truth is that we have a two-tiered system; one for the haves and another for the have-nots.
I saw it everyday in the emergency room. Those with insurance could get quick outpatient follow-up services, while those without insurance usually couldn’t. It was so prevalent that I did non-emergent primary care in the E.R. all the time. That’s not exactly what the E.R. is for.
Nevertheless, I’d order CAT scans and MRI’s that really should have been done as an outpatient. But unfortunately, it those patients didn’t get them in the E.R. then they wouldn’t get them at all.
The injustices in our system are palpable. And study after study confirms that. It stings to read in the journal Cancer about women without insurance being 60% more likely to die than those with insurance.
Or how about the analysis done by the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office? Shockingly, they found that the rich live significantly longer than the poor.
Source: GAO analysis of 1992 through 2014 Health and Retirement Study data. | GAO-19-587
It’s not right. Our two-tiered system puts many of our citizens at risk. But recognizing this problem and solving it are two different things. After all, the problem is multifaceted.
Some think a complete governmental takeover of medicine will solve the problem. They chant their mantra, “Medicare For All!”
In theory it sounds good, but how is the government going to solve a problem that they are largely responsible for creating? After all, it was the government that mandated we use the electronic medical record. And now we have doctors burning out in record numbers spending twice as much time on mindless governmental busy work than they do on actual patient care.
It’s regulations like these that have created such bureaucratic bloat that’s resulted in a 3200 percent increase in healthcare administrators between 1975 and 2010. To keep that in perspective, during the same time period, there was a 150 percent increase in the number of physicians.
I for one, don’t want the government taking over healthcare.
With a national debt that is north of $21 trillion, we’ll never see a system that reimburses at Medicare rates. Instead, it will morph in to a Medicaid for all system of rationing incomplete care. It won’t bring the have-nots up; it will only bring the haves down.
It’s depressing, I know. And even worse, medicine isn’t the only tiered system in this country. Take for example the wealth management and financial advisory system.
This multitrillion-dollar industry has primarily revolved around selling people stock based assets. These advisors are incentivized to push the stock, bond, and mutual fund investments that pay them commissions.
They teach things like work hard trading time for heavily taxed money. They want you to stay at your job for 30 – 40 years and live on less than you make. By being frugal, you should have money left over to buy their investments and put money in their pockets.
It’s not that this advice is necessarily wrong; it’s just wildly incomplete. They never get beyond the basics and teach people about a whole other system that the wealthy use and that’s available for accredited investors.
It’s the system of alternative investments and private placements. They aren’t taught about creating passive income outside of the daily grind. The don’t know about tax credits, depreciation, depletion, and a whole host of other tax incentives that can dramatically reduce their tax burden.
And they certainly haven’t been shown how true investment diversification happens. Many have little to none of their portfolio outside of paper assets and Wall Street. They don’t know how to make money when the economy declines.
There is no one size fits all investment category that is right for everyone. And a whole industry shouldn’t have sprung up to pigeonhole the masses into investments that pay commissions to sales people.
And yet again, it’s the government that is largely responsible for creating a multi-tiered financial system. They mandate that only accredited investors can gain access to many of these “alternative” types of investments.
Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not against the stock market or paper assets in general. I just believe that knowledge is power and I wonder how many more people could benefit from these opportunities if only they were allowed access.
I’m fortunately, because I’m an accredited investor. But still yet, nobody taught me about these types of investments. I had to learn about them on my own. And so many other accredited investors representing all kinds of professions have shared that same story with me. I want to change that.
Ultimately, it starts with education. So if you’re tired of being sold to and really want to educate yourself on alternative investments and private placements than let me introduce you to the accredited investors network.
Whether you’re interested in investing in real estate, business, precious metals, commodities, venture capital, private equity, managed futures, gas and oil, or a whole host of other alternative investments, this is the place to be.
It’s a place in which accredited investors can meet and share insights to the various alternative investments available to accredited investors. We learn from each other in an environment free from sales.
In a perfect world, tiered systems wouldn’t exist. But again, the world isn’t perfect and I don’t have all the answers. What I do know is that it’s better to be in the favored class than to be amongst the unfavored.
Until the government stops discriminating against non-accredited investors, there is little I can do for them. What I will do, however, is continue to educate people on the merits of investing in commercial multifamily real estate. But, as good as this asset class is, it certainly isn’t right for everyone.
Therefore it’s my intention to create a network of informed people who can share their knowledge and experience with various private placements and asset classes. Collectively, that knowledge can be a powerful tool. We all know that educated investors make better investment decisions. And maybe by joining together, we can help others so that someday everyone can be in the favored class.
So let’s get started. If you’re an accredited investor and you’d like to join the Accredited Investors Network, please join us at the links below. I look forward to sharing with you my knowledge and experience as well as learning from yours.
We’ll keep the main group on NestEggRx with an abbreviated version on Facebook. If your accredited, I’d highly recommend you join both.
