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...that - particularly primary-care providers (PCPs), the foot soldiers of the U.S. medical system. New doctors graduate from medical school lugging up to $200,000 in student loans. Paying that off takes a big bite out of even a low-six-figure salary. Add to that the high costs, long days and billing headaches involved in running a practice, and it's no wonder so many family docs are trading up to specialties like orthopedics, where the pay can be three times as great and the hours a whole lot shorter. Only 3 out of 10 doctors...
...procedures they do themselves but also from the ones they farm out. Others buy state-of-the-art diagnostic hardware and charge state-of-the-art fees to use it. "Focus on your bottom line," urges a brochure for in-office CT-scan machines from one manufacturer. And as long as insurers pay the bills, patients don't ask what things cost. "A colonoscopy used to take 45 minutes to perform," says Ted Epperly, board chairman of the American Academy of Family Physicians. "Now it takes 15, but the cost hasn't come down." (See how to prevent illness...
...Federal Reserve failed to rein in mortgage-lending, while regulatory agencies like the Office of Thrift Supervision allowed banks to make loans without adequate capital. But the FDIC has the final say on when and how to close a bank, and some believe it has been waiting too long to act, adding to the cost of failures. Regulators labeled Chicago-based Corus Bank critically undercapitalized in March, but it took the FDIC until mid-September to shut it down--a closure that could cost the FDIC $1.7 billion...
...Road to War Our first flight took us to a deserted stretch of Black Sea coast at Anaklia Bay. Saakashvili, who is sometimes swept away by his own optimism, met several leading Spanish architects on the beach to discuss developing a resort nearly 4 miles (6 km) long that would lead right up to the border with the breakaway republic of Abkhazia. The area may have natural potential - "The water's like boiled milk," an official told me approvingly - but Saakashvili seemed to be ignoring the obvious. If war breaks out again, the Russian army will rumble first through Anaklia...
...called Batumi a "very pleasant little tropical city" after a 1948 visit there, but he would not recognize it now. There's a water park and countless neon-lit fountains that burble in sync with songs like "Pretty Woman" and "Somewhere over the Rainbow." The town centerpiece is a long promenade with 800 palm trees, sleek benches designed in Valencia, Spain, and an artificial river lit neon blue. Working through the night, workers built the place in three months. Construction unions, Saakashvili joked, would come to Georgia only "when everything is already built." One of the renovated plazas will host...