In Brazil, there are TONS of male nurses working in hospitals, and there is not stigma at all to name of the profession (at least from my various experiences with hospitals and ERs).

The fact that Portuguese has declension to indicate gender in this particular word ('enfermeiro' is male, 'enfermeira' is female) might play a role in this.

I don't know if it will get anywhere though, doctors have a powerful union.

ACA also disincentives private insurers from wanting to reduce cost. Their profit is now limited to a certain percentage of the premiums, so naturally their only real way to profit is by raising the living shit out of the premiums.

Whatever problems you have with the ACA, it's not the cause here.

Fix that by adopting healthcare systems from overseas, rather than increasing the mortality rate.

The US has double the healthcare expenditure by %age of GDP vs comparable nations such as the UK or Australia, and this order-of-magnitude difference is entirely explainable as systematic inefficiencies of the insurance-led market and uncontrolled drug pricing. All that cost - and it doesn't even cover everyone.

Future generations will study the basket case that is today's US non-single-payer insurance system and write it up under chapter titles like "What the hell were they thinking" and "How not to do it".

That suggestion of "Associate doctors" is a travesty that would simply further confuse a public already beset by snake oil salesmen and the false hope of "alternative".

What you are asking for - what you have listed as the positive outcomes - is properly handled by a patient advocate. These are rare today, I would see it grow as a profession.

I wonder if there is a way to structure payments such that doctors fill this role. It would be convenient if their incentives were so well aligned with patient interests.

[1] http://englishcowpath.blogspot.com.au/2011/06/euphemism-trea...

That might get a man or two interested. "Nurse" has mammary overtones.

I don't understand your point about "demeaning" though.

Are you saying calling people under nurses care "flesh" is demeaning? Or saying the word "Nurse" has mammary overtones (it does, and I assume some sort of common root) is demeaning?

I would have down-voted the comment for being dumb rather than demeaning (admittedly it is kind of a dumb comment).

Just struggling to understand demeaning here because I'm not the kind of persons who wants to demean so maybe I should know something I don't.