Quite the opposite. There is proof they were right. It’s just being ignored.
The purpose of this idea is two-fold. First, if pilots don't have to foot the bill for excessive testing, it's likely that more pilots would be forthright on their medicals and seek treatment when necessary. This makes the skies safer, which is of public benefit. Therefore, this would arguably be worthy of tax dollars. Second, if the FAA has to foot the bill instead of pilots, the FAA would be incentivized to find ways to make that bill smaller, perhaps eliminating a lot of unnecessary testing and decreasing the general social cost of such testing.
You got me here. My idea would absolutely create this problem.
The FAA doesn't "foot the bill," the taxpayers do. The FAA will have no incentive to make that bill smaller; no FAA employee has his compensation tied to the FAA's financial performance. In industry, we have forms of incentive compensation (bonuses, profit sharing, etc.) which do this, but there's no such thing in a federal bureaucracy.
Nobody has to foot the bill for excessive testing. If you don't want to do the tests, if it isn't worth it to you, don't. The testing comes up because the FAA has said, "We don't believe you are eligible for a medical certificate." The airman said, "But I am." And the FAA said, "Prove it to us." If you don't like the FAA's standard of proof, talk to your congressman. But the FAA and taxpayers are under no moral or legal obligation to prove that you're eligible for a medical.
Everyone has a breaking point. None of us is immune.
Indeed. And yet most don't kill themselves.
Isn't there a certain injustice, though, in the FAA's letting the applicant's test results sit around until they are no longer valid and then demanding that they be repeated?
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Maybe the problem with our health insurance system is that people expect it to pay for whatever they want regardless of whether it's necessary. There are plenty of free or very low-cost mental-health treatment options that are available and don't even require reporting to the FAA.
I pay for my insurance and it pays for preventative care in the form of physicals. Do I leave every physical with a diagnosis? No. Does every visit for a symptom or two leave with a diagnosis? No, of course not, but we still sometimes seek care to make sure it isn’t more serious or get some basic treatment for a relatively minor problem. Therapy at hard times can be the same exact thing.
So in your reckoning, the FAA should pay for all the testing a diagnosed mentally ill person needs in order to prove he isn't mentally ill, or is only minimally mentally ill, is that right? And then if he actually is mentally ill, the FAA should pay for treatment? Should the FAA pay for my BP meds because it has a BP standard, or the exam to get my PCP to fill out the hypertension CACI worksheet? Should it pay for sleep studies and buy CPAPs for pilots with OSA? Buy older pilots reading glasses? Where do you draw the line?
You're right. The FAA is not subject to market forces that would normally incentivize an organization to cut costs. However, the FAA is subject to Congress. Under such a program (which would have to be authorized by Congress in the first place) the FAA would have to justify its funding level. So if the FAA orders excessive tests, which the government would be paying for, they have to justify the X number of billions going into the medical office. If their numbers are looking a bit high, which they would under the current system, Congress would start asking uncomfortable questions about whether the current system is a bit excessive.
I was under the impression that any and all mental health treatment, with or without meds, must be reported. Am I mistaken?
That’s the first time I’ve heard amphetamines and barbiturates referred to as performance enhancing drugs.
From the medxpress instructions:
I think it's more like: "Get your mental health squared away," followed by "Now turn in your medical and go be a barista, you mental nut case." The cost of professional flight training flushed down the crapper far exceeds the cost of a typical doctor's visit.
And he isn't delayed under the ADHD fast track protocol, as long as a psychologist agrees. No expensive tests required.
Yeah... that truly is the issue.
Feeling sad is not depression or suicidal ideation. Sadness is something where counseling on finding effective positive coping skills would not a be psychiatric issue.
Sorry, that was a little hyperbole on my part. I’m working with a HIMS AME (a different one). I suppose I should probably ask him.
Too bad, so sad. If I have to fund your department of defense at the point of a gun, you should have to fund universal health care. It's absurd that in the richest country in the world we have people unable to access health care, largely because of a wage freeze during WWII.
In what little I learned/retained from psychology is the fact that all of us, in some small way, are a little bit "whacked" ...
Nah. Don't conflate these issues. The only reason I want the FAA to pay for their excessive medical testing is because this is a problem created by them, so it should be fixed by them.
Nope. When he brings taxes and "point of the gun" nonsense into things, it's perfectly on topic to point out that the gun points in a lot of directions. If he's going to point a gun at me to fund the military then he should be equally accountable for peoples health care. Neither should be optional in the richest nation on earth. If I have to pay thousands of dollars a year against my will to blow people up, he can save money (versus the current system) every year by having a universal health care system that's tax funded (at the point of a gun!)
well, they weren't issued just for the fun of it, in my view.Well, maybe this isn't the place for a discussion of public versus private goods.
CAMI = Civil Aerospace Medical Institute.
When the American colonies threw off British rule, one of the slogans was "No taxation without representation." The "taxation is theft" claim sounds like an argument for "No taxation WITH representation."
Yup.
CACI = Can Authorize Can Issue
