Medicare for all and physician salaries

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wimby2016

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I'm not even sure what determines reimbursement rates right now, but will a single payer healthcare system drive down physician wages? With all the current hype about medicare for all it seems like it will be implemented sometime in the near future, which has me wondering how our compensation may be affected...

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It will cut physician pay by HALF.

Docs will make less than what CRNAs/PAs/NPs currently make.

Source: look at Canada or England
 
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It will cut physician pay by HALF.

Docs will make less than what CRNAs/PAs/NPs currently make.

Source: look at Canada or England

Yep. Which will make most of us ask, why should we bust our ass and destroy our 20s, health, and relationships in residency, for the same salary a nurse makes... when we could work less and not kill ourselves. It’s exactly what happened in my home country. Which is why both my parents were physicians and couldn’t afford their own apartment, and lived with my grandparents.
 
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Yep. Which will make most of us ask, why should we bust our ass and destroy our 20s, health, and relationships in residency, for the same salary a nurse makes... when we could work less and not kill ourselves. It’s exactly what happened in my home country. Which is why both my parents were physicians and couldn’t afford their own apartment, and lived with my grandparents.
I will work exactly as hard as you pay me to work. Currently I'm paid based on billing so I work my tail off. If you salary me at half what I make now I will absolutely work half as hard.
 
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Lmao is the being paid the same as mid levels true? If so how can people reconcile with that when medical school cost over 200k?
 
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I'm assuming it wouldn't actually cut physician salaries in half, that's drastic. But if it did, that would still be 125k for PCPs, and I can't imagine NPs/PAs/CRNAs would still be making as much, they would probably drop to 65-75k. (Unless you're like a surgery PA in rural bum-**** already making A LOT of money)
 
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I'm assuming it wouldn't actually cut physician salaries in half, that's drastic. But if it did, that would still be 125k for PCPs, and I can't imagine NPs/PAs/CRNAs would still be making as much, they would probably drop to 65-75k. (Unless you're like a surgery PA in rural bum-**** already making A LOT of money)
I do not believe it either tbh. Even IF this happened then this would probably be systemic and effect every health profession or else none of this would be sustainable unless medical schools became cheaper, which I do not see happening.
 
Salaries would decrease but so would work load. My attendings see between 30-40 patients between 2-3 days per week. Under a Medicare for all system that’d number would drop down to 10-15, as I’m sure it would for all other docs who see tons of patients. Wait times would increase for surgeries especially for quality of life issues like pelvic floor disorders, arthritis, etc and non emergent conditions. It’d be more like the VA system more than a communist or socialist country. What’s most scary is medicine would no longer attract the top minds and we’d be stuck with many more mediocre docs who are in charge of our health in addition to suboptimally trained midleves, which is a recipe for disaster in a country where life expectancy is decreasing even under the current system.
 
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Yes
I'm not even sure what determines reimbursement rates right now, but will a single payer healthcare system drive down physician wages? With all the current hype about medicare for all it seems like it will be implemented sometime in the near future, which has me wondering how our compensation may be affected...

Yes we’ll adopt a model similar to teachers in goverment public schools
 
Lmao is the being paid the same as mid levels true? If so how can people reconcile with that when medical school cost over 200k?

Eventually they will make Med school free.

Current Med student like myself will fall in the donut hole. I’m paying the money and I have a bad feeling that I’ll never reap financial reward to make it worthwhile. This should terrify Med students FAR MORE than midlevels, IMGs taking spots, boards... this should be the one unifying thing that we talk about.

I rarely hear people talking about it at school, and the faculty haven’t even mentioned it, despite droning on for dozens of hours about how evil for-profit medicine is. The cognitive dissonance is real.
 
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Yup stuck in this mess. No one talks about increasing med school costs, debt burden and when you bring up money in medicine, people will shut you off saying you're not supposed to do medicine for money.
Make med school free, I will never talk about money
But not much to do. Seems like the doctors don't have much say in terms of what happens. Corporate can take over, government can take over, "docs should just shut up and practice medicine"
 
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Even with a democratic president in 2020, I am highly suspect a Medicare for all bill could pass both chambers on congress. The senate is highly shifted towards republicans until at least 2022 if not longer. Even to get a simple majority in the senate would take a near Herculean feat given the seats that are up for re-election. That said, even in a world where you have a fully Democrat run government with a Democrat president, the most likely initial iteration of a medicare for all type proposal would be expanding the public option and more regulation of private insurers.

So while it is probably a threat to physician salaries, quality of care among other concerns, I see no feasible possibility of this passing as is (ie elimination of private health care and Medicare only, or socialized medicine) in the next 3 years, but probably even longer than that. The future of medicine may be Medicare for all but were still a ways away even if the heat is being turned up by the progressive wing of the Democratic Party
 
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Eventually they will make Med school free.

Current Med student like myself will fall in the donut hole. I’m paying the money and I have a bad feeling that I’ll never reap financial reward to make it worthwhile. This should terrify Med students FAR MORE than midlevels, IMGs taking spots, boards... this should be the one unifying thing that we talk about.

I rarely hear people talking about it at school, and the faculty haven’t even mentioned it, despite droning on for dozens of hours about how evil for-profit medicine is. The cognitive dissonance is real.

Sometimes I worry about this... Then I think about the fact that not long ago half of the country voted for Trump and wants to roll back Obamacare. I think we're probably a ways away from this happening... but who knows though.
 
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I rarely hear people talking about it at school, and the faculty haven’t even mentioned it, despite droning on for dozens of hours about how evil for-profit medicine is. The cognitive dissonance is real.

Corporate for-profit medicine is the one thing that is more evil than single payer. I’d rather work for the government than for “investors”.
 
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Salaries would decrease but so would work load. My attendings see between 30-40 patients between 2-3 days per week. Under a Medicare for all system that’d number would drop down to 10-15, as I’m sure it would for all other docs who see tons of patients. Wait times would increase for surgeries especially for quality of life issues like pelvic floor disorders, arthritis, etc and non emergent conditions. It’d be more like the VA system more than a communist or socialist country. What’s most scary is medicine would no longer attract the top minds and we’d be stuck with many more mediocre docs who are in charge of our health in addition to suboptimally trained midleves, which is a recipe for disaster in a country where life expectancy is decreasing even under the current system.

How do you figure that the number of patients will decrease? It seems intuitive that extending coverage to the entire population will lead to a higher utilization of healthcare, not lower. Yes, if we invest heavily in preventative med, we might see a decrease (or a decrease in the rate of growth) but that would be many years down the line. I should also note that the reason Canadian physician salaries are higher relative to other single payer systems is that they need to prevent people from hopping the border to practice in the US to make more money.

I also don't fully buy the brain drain argument. Yes, the drop in salaries will deter a few people, but medicine is still an incredibly prestigious career and I don't think admissions standards will start dropping too quickly, especially at the tippy-top of elite schools. There are simply too many applicants for number of seats.

Physicians salaries haven't even kept pace with inflation and they account for ~10% of healthcare spending, I don't think slashing our salaries will be tenable given the massive debt and education burden. Even cutting salaries in half would only decrease spending by 5%. The real sink is administration costs and the massive profits being made by insurance and pharmaceutical companies. If there is a massive impetus to cut salaries, the AMA (or another physicians' union with teeth) needs to start doing its job.

To be clear, I think universal coverage is a moral imperative, but discussions about its implementation should be welcome.
 
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Even with a democratic president in 2020, I am highly suspect a Medicare for all bill could pass both chambers on congress. The senate is highly shifted towards republicans until at least 2022 if not longer. Even to get a simple majority in the senate would take a near Herculean feat given the seats that are up for re-election. That said, even in a world where you have a fully Democrat run government with a Democrat president, the most likely initial iteration of a medicare for all type proposal would be expanding the public option and more regulation of private insurers.

So while it is probably a threat to physician salaries, quality of care among other concerns, I see no feasible possibility of this passing as is (ie elimination of private health care and Medicare only, or socialized medicine) in the next 3 years, but probably even longer than that. The future of medicine may be Medicare for all but were still a ways away even if the heat is being turned up by the progressive wing of the Democratic Party

Yeah, I agree. I think full-on socialized medicine is untenable in the political short-term. But don't underestimate how far left my generation has drifted. If we think historically, the generation that came of age during the Great Depression ended up being the most progressive (or even downright socialist) generation in US history. We became adults in the wake of 2008, when the damaging effects of capital run amok were readily apparent. Once the Boomers begin dying off and Millennials start holding the reins of power, things are going to start changing pretty dramatically. That said, I think it will take at least 10 years -- just in time for me to start practicing. :rolleyes:
 
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They need to target admin bloat first. The only issue is it's probably easier just to slash physican salaries since they are an increasingly hated target and identifiable while no one even know who the f*** admins are or what they do.
 
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Not super educated on this topic but if salaries decreased drastically (which is probably reasonable to assume) wouldn’t it be reasonable to assume that basically everything else would be forced to change. Cost of med school would have to change, work load would have to change etc. Bc if it didn’t nobody would go to medical school anymore and currently practicing docs would just stop. It doesn’t seem realistic that salaries just decrease in a vacuum without a reactive change in other aspect of the medical field. A decrease in salary without any change in work life and cost of school would basically be protested by every physician and medical student in the country.


But personally I’d be fine going to med school making 100-150k tops as long as school was massively sibsized.
 
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The worst part is our pay isn't the real driving cost of healthcare in the US... I doubt insurance (the inflated cost vs actual cost) & pharmaceutical costs will be adequately addressed
 
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I think you're underestimating how poorly physicians are organized. We need a serious, inclusive physicians' union to fight for our interests (and our ability to fight for our patients). Or a big change in AMA leadership.

The problem with reactive changes are that they are always too slow -- someone is gonna get ****ed and to an extent, this is unavoidable in any sort of massive social upheaval. It's looking like this generation going through med school now accruing massive amounts of debt who will likely see declining reimbursements with higher workloads.
Fair point. I think that a massive salary decrease would be impetus enough to get real organization of physicians to lobby in our favor though. Idk much about why physical organization is so bad now, but I wouldn’t be surprised if part of it is because at the end of the day US docs are very well compensated and respected. No matter how much BS gets thrown our way we are still top 1-5% earners with lifestyles better than most. So I think it can be easy to be content and not motivated to organize bc in a general sense docs have it good (relative to the average American). But you take away lifestyle and pay from docs you take away a major source of that content-ness. This is all opinion btw so I’m not sure what will happen. Also, wouldn’t other healthcare workers decrease as well? PA, NP, PharmDs, DPMs, Dentists, DPTs, ODs, even chiros etc? So it wouldn’t just be docs lobbying against this and wanting to unify.
 
Fair point. I think that a massive salary decrease would be impetus enough to get real organization of physicians to lobby in our favor though. Idk much about why physical organization is so bad now, but I wouldn’t be surprised if part of it is because at the end of the day US docs are very well compensated and respected. No matter how much BS gets thrown our way we are still top 1-5% earners with lifestyles better than most. So I think it can be easy to be content and not motivated to organize bc in a general sense docs have it good (relative to the average American). But you take away lifestyle and pay from docs you take away a major source of that content-ness. This is all opinion btw so I’m not sure what will happen. Also, wouldn’t other healthcare workers decrease as well? PA, NP, PharmDs, DPMs, Dentists, DPTs, ODs, even chiros etc? So it wouldn’t just be docs lobbying against this and wanting to unify.

We are all talking opinions, none of us really understands the politics underlying the massive behemoth that is healthcare capital in the US. Here's my take: people always fight for their own interests. The American Nurses Association (ANA) is not friends with the AMA and their relationship could probably be characterized as antagonistic. Hopefully, this newest generation will be able to step up and organize in a way that can engage and unite physicians around the country. The best way to help make this come about is to start with yourself: go to AMA meetings, keep up with developments, try to organize physicians around you, and make your voice heard.
 
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Why even go to medical school now? We are the generation that is getting f***** by everything. Mid level encroachment, decreasing reimbursements, decreasing trust, increasing competition for most residencies.

Why do we bother?
 
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Why even go to medical school now? We are the generation that is getting f***** by everything. Mid level encroachment, decreasing reimbursements, decreasing trust, increasing competition for most residencies.

Why do we bother?
upload_2019-2-6_12-44-57.png
 
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Even 90% of democrats don't think Medicare for All is going to happen. We can chill
 
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Why even go to medical school now? We are the generation that is getting f***** by everything. Mid level encroachment, decreasing reimbursements, decreasing trust, increasing competition for most residencies.

Why do we bother?
Yup and when most med students raise dissent on things like tuition work hours salaries etc, some people answer by who asked you to come to medicine
 
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There's more sense in this thread than you'll find in most Medscape articles on the subject. More people might be "covered" under such a system, but if you weigh both the number of beneficiaries and the quality of care, "Medicare for all" would be a net negative. Though we'd probably run on fumes for a few years.
 
Why even go to medical school now? We are the generation that is getting f***** by everything. Mid level encroachment, decreasing reimbursements, decreasing trust, increasing competition for most residencies.

Why do we bother?
Because pre-meds dont listen to me when I recommend not going to medical school. They look at some cardiologist from 1999 who is chilling and lives in a mansion and it skews their expectations.
 
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Because pre-meds dont listen to me when I recommend not going to medical school. They look at some cardiologist from 1999 who is chilling and lives in a mansion and it skews their expectations.
Or it could be that they have realistic expectations and still like the idea.

I mean hell, I'm a family doctor (meaning less money than almost everyone else) and I would do this again in a heart beat.
 
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I am sure CEO and VP salaries will go down as well.


...



:lol:


J/k we all know it’s the rich overpaid doctors with Ferraris in the parking lot that are the problem. Problem solved!
 
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Not super educated on this topic but if salaries decreased drastically (which is probably reasonable to assume) wouldn’t it be reasonable to assume that basically everything else would be forced to change. Cost of med school would have to change, work load would have to change etc. Bc if it didn’t nobody would go to medical school anymore and currently practicing docs would just stop. It doesn’t seem realistic that salaries just decrease in a vacuum without a reactive change in other aspect of the medical field. A decrease in salary without any change in work life and cost of school would basically be protested by every physician and medical student in the country.


But personally I’d be fine going to med school making 100-150k tops as long as school was massively sibsized.

No, it would just become even more a profession only for rich kids as it traditionally was before the loan servicing industry saw an opportunity to profit. Right now poor and middle class kids can become doctors if they are willing to become an indentured servant at a criminal 7% interest rate that will take them 15 years to pay back while their rich colleagues instead enjoy 15 years of maxing out retirement accounts that grow tax free through recent tax loopholes.

Medicine is basically one step above cash advance stores at this point in terms of exploiting people trying to work and advance in life.
 
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Even with a democratic president in 2020, I am highly suspect a Medicare for all bill could pass both chambers on congress. The senate is highly shifted towards republicans until at least 2022 if not longer. Even to get a simple majority in the senate would take a near Herculean feat given the seats that are up for re-election. That said, even in a world where you have a fully Democrat run government with a Democrat president, the most likely initial iteration of a medicare for all type proposal would be expanding the public option and more regulation of private insurers.

So while it is probably a threat to physician salaries, quality of care among other concerns, I see no feasible possibility of this passing as is (ie elimination of private health care and Medicare only, or socialized medicine) in the next 3 years, but probably even longer than that. The future of medicine may be Medicare for all but were still a ways away even if the heat is being turned up by the progressive wing of the Democratic Party
Can someone explain why we even need Medicare for all? My HMO is pretty decent, why not just Medicare for those who can't afford insurance?? Or are they the same?
 
No, it would just become even more a profession only for rich kids as it traditionally was before the loan servicing industry saw an opportunity to profit. Right now poor and middle class kids can become doctors if they are willing to become an indentured servant at a criminal 7% interest rate that will take them 15 years to pay back while their rich colleagues instead enjoy 15 years of maxing out retirement accounts that grow tax free through recent tax loopholes.

Medicine is basically one step above cash advance stores at this point in terms of exploiting people trying to work and advance in life.
:thumbup::thumbup::thumbup::highfive:
 
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[QUOTE="RNthenDoc, post: 20682374, member: 887545”] the faculty haven’t even mentioned it, despite droning on for dozens of hours about how evil for-profit medicine is. The cognitive dissonance is real.[/QUOTE]

Ask your faculty what their salaries are and why their “non profit” hospital is allowed to charge three times what the services of the evil physician-owned for profit freestanding centers can, why those charges are a secret, and where that additional profit goes.

Fair warning: expect a professionalism citation.

Say what you want about Trump, but give him serious credit for pushing this legislation to expose pricing.
 
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Can someone explain why we even need Medicare for all? My HMO is pretty decent, why not just Medicare for those who can't afford insurance?? Or are they the same?

You’re basically describing the NHS in the UK. An absolute garbage “free” health system that provides bare minimal care to the whole population, that is so bad that anybody with money would rather pay extra for private insurance, thereby forcing them to pay through their taxes for junk healthcare they don’t use then pay a second time for expensive insurance in order to get decent healthcare.

Ask any Brit what their experience with the NHS has been like and if they think the US should adopt something similar.
 
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What do people think of this study:

Full Report

It looked at what physician salaries would be if everyone was paid by medicare rates, broken down by specialty. The effect was very different depending on specialty (some saw salaries cut by over a third and others made modest gains). Thought it was interesting
 
Not super educated on this topic but if salaries decreased drastically (which is probably reasonable to assume) wouldn’t it be reasonable to assume that basically everything else would be forced to change. Cost of med school would have to change, work load would have to change etc. Bc if it didn’t nobody would go to medical school anymore and currently practicing docs would just stop. It doesn’t seem realistic that salaries just decrease in a vacuum without a reactive change in other aspect of the medical field. A decrease in salary without any change in work life and cost of school would basically be protested by every physician and medical student in the country.

Look no farther then pharmacy to see that people will fill a class no matter what. Pharmacy has essentially been a dead end for several years and is only getting worse. Schools continue to expand and charge absurd tuition. It's unrealistic to think that med schools would slash tuition if doctor pay goes down.
 
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I'm not even sure what determines reimbursement rates right now, but will a single payer healthcare system drive down physician wages? With all the current hype about medicare for all it seems like it will be implemented sometime in the near future, which has me wondering how our compensation may be affected...

A couple of things.

1. The term "Medicare for all" is getting thrown around a lot lately, but without a specific policy proposal it is rather futile to read the tea leaves. It could mean making Medicare available to everyone regardless of age (i.e. a public option), or it could mean destroying the private health insurance industry. It could mean Medicare as it is now (premiums, copays, etc.), or it could mean a 100% tax-funded system without premiums or copays. So if you want to have a discussion about this I think you need to pick one model and be clear about your question.

2. Physician salaries in Canada are an interesting study. On average generalists make more than their US counterparts and specialists make less. Overall physician satisfaction actually tends to be higher, because they spend more of their time practicing and less of their time navigating insurance. Coding and billing is essentially uniform within each province. IMHO their systems for handling malpractice are superior to ours, and lead to fewer concerns about defensive medicine. All that said, I strongly doubt that a sudden shift to a Canadian model would be politically feasible in this country.
 
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Imo comparison to any other country is a hard sell given the differences in our the size and diversity (background and ses) of our population. I happen to agree an easier approach would be to expand Medicare and attempt to improve quality all the while keeping private health insurance with increased regulation. Ideologically I believe everyone should be (and can be) covered, it’s just a matter of what is least disruptive and of the highest quality
 
No, it would just become even more a profession only for rich kids as it traditionally was before the loan servicing industry saw an opportunity to profit. Right now poor and middle class kids can become doctors if they are willing to become an indentured servant at a criminal 7% interest rate that will take them 15 years to pay back while their rich colleagues instead enjoy 15 years of maxing out retirement accounts that grow tax free through recent tax loopholes.

Medicine is basically one step above cash advance stores at this point in terms of exploiting people trying to work and advance in life.
I think that's a bit hyperbolic (well more than a bit really).

Let's take us lowly family med types. 250k/year is not difficult to attain. In my state which does have an income tax, assuming married but no kids, your monthly net (after benefits including maxing out a 401K) will be somewhere in the neighborhood of 10k. A 10 year loan at 7% with a 300k principle results in payment of around 3.5k/month. That leaves 6.5k. Our first house out of residency was 3800 sq ft, half acre lot right outside the capital city. Our mortgage was 2.2k/month. Down to 4.2k. Let's assume another 3k/month for food, gas, minor repairs (plumber, oil change, child care, co-pays, and so on). That still leaves you with over 1k/month of discretionary income.

That's a single earner in one of medicines lowest paid fields.
 
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[QUOTE="RNthenDoc, post: 20682374, member: 887545”] the faculty haven’t even mentioned it, despite droning on for dozens of hours about how evil for-profit medicine is. The cognitive dissonance is real.

Ask your faculty what their salaries are and why their “non profit” hospital is allowed to charge three times what the services of the evil physician-owned for profit freestanding centers can, why those charges are a secret, and where that additional profit goes.

Fair warning: expect a professionalism citation.

Say what you want about Trump, but give him serious credit for pushing this legislation to expose pricing.[/QUOTE]


I work in both settings.

The freestanding surgicenter accepts zero no pay patients and everyone goes home by 6. The hospital takes all comers, runs a busy 24/7 ER, level 1 trauma center, blood bank, lab, multiple ICU’s, Cath labs, IR suites, every possible imaging modality, pays call stipends for multiple specialties, etc. They need to cost shift somewhere or else they will go broke.
 
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I work in both settings.

The freestanding surgicenter accepts zero no pay patients and everyone goes home by 6. The hospital takes all comers, runs a busy 24/7 ER, level 1 trauma center, blood bank, lab, multiple ICU’s, Cath labs, IR suites, every possible imaging modality, pays call stipends for multiple specialties, etc. They need to cost shift somewhere or else they will go broke.
The question is does that cost shifting require a sometimes 10X or more price increase?

And what about the hospitals that don't have all of that. Its not like they are that much cheaper than the major centers.
 
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I think that's a bit hyperbolic (well more than a bit really).

Let's take us lowly family med types. 250k/year is not difficult to attain. In my state which does have an income tax, assuming married but no kids, your monthly net (after benefits including maxing out a 401K) will be somewhere in the neighborhood of 10k. A 10 year loan at 7% with a 300k principle results in payment of around 3.5k/month. That leaves 6.5k. Our first house out of residency was 3800 sq ft, half acre lot right outside the capital city. Our mortgage was 2.2k/month. Down to 4.2k. Let's assume another 3k/month for food, gas, minor repairs (plumber, oil change, child care, co-pays, and so on). That still leaves you with over 1k/month of discretionary income.

That's a single earner in one of medicines lowest paid fields.

Except that maxing out your 401k isn’t enough, and “no kids” isn’t the norm. So the 1k in “discretionary” income isn’t near enough.
 
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This thread is awesome. Nice to see people bringing pertinent financial issues in medicine than pushing away money

I think main issues I see are
medical school tuition , exorbitant amount that suffocates you till you're an attending.
Constant attempt to control over physician autonomy and salaries whether that's corporate takeover , Medicaid legislation, mid level encroachment

I wish senior residents get paid more especially in fields that have long residencies.

I'm not sure about the exact numbers but a 7th neurosurgery resident or radiology fellow or 4th year derm resident , 6th year cardiology fellow getting paid below 80-100k is ridiculous
 
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It would look like the state of our education system which is awful. Plus as said above it would attract less able minded people.
Pay teachers pennies get sucky teachers and bad education. Same for docs.

Our salary isn’t the problem in healthcare it’s bloated administration that thinks they add value when they are really yet nopotistic bodies sucking dollars from the money tank
 
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On one hand, it’s naive to think that a single payer system wouldn’t destroy doctor salaries. It will destroy everyone in healthcare.

Fun note: a cardiothoracic surgeon in the UK makes $25 per hour, and they’re typically required to put in 65 hour weeks. Medicine is NOT a prestigious occupation in single payer counties - it’s seen as a mission-based profession, like teachers, and does not attract the best and brightest by any means. In my home country (a European country often touted as a beacon of progressivism) well-to-do parents are often embarrassed when their kid chooses medicine. It’s a disappointment. It’s as if the son of two Harvard-educated lawyers decided to be a plumber.

On the plus side, I highly doubt it could happen in the USA. Too many people are employed in healthcare. I believe something like 25% of the US workforce is involved in something healthcare related. What do you think is gonna happen to employment if they cut the amount of money going into healthcare by 60%? Oh yeah, and don’t forget that doctor shortage, and our aging population. Even the AOC-school Democrats aren’t dumb enough to try to institute a single payer system in this country now... I hope.
 
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Honestly I wouldn’t want a CTS making 50 operating on my heart. IDK if he’s greedy af and makes 1 mil as long as hes intelligent enough to do the work and to have fought thru the obstacles to get a CTS residency.

Not like teaching where you get some of the dumbest people that go to college go into teaching making 30 k a year. Education is basically the basket that all the failed pharmacy medicine etc even nursing people jump into when biology I wrecks their world
 
Honestly I wouldn’t want a CTS making 50 operating on my heart. IDK if he’s greedy af and makes 1 mil as long as hes intelligent enough to do the work and to have fought thru the obstacles to get a CTS residency.

Not like teaching where you get some of the dumbest people that go to college go into teaching making 30 k a year. Education is basically the basket that all the failed pharmacy medicine etc even nursing people jump into when biology I wrecks their world

If you really want to be depressed, speak to a doctor who works in the UK. Government cuts their salary and increases their hours and patient load on a whim. The public just sees them as greedy and thinks they should work for free. The government and the public craps all over them. It’s a field the smart students avoid. On the plus side, I guess, you can’t really sue them.
 
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