Psych salaries may continue to go up, they may stabilize, they may go down. It's a pretty volatile thing at this point in time. For a lot of reasons ranging from scientific to political.
I wouldn't expect much from either candidate. It's legislatures at the state and federal level that are going to make the difference with mental health parity laws. If those get enacted, it will mean greater patient access, greater opportunities for reimbursement for therapy, etc. A good thing. The attendings and practicing psychiatrists I know believe the momentum is in our favor on this issue.
If anything, I would look to the candidate who would hurt us less. Universal health care will not be kind to psychiatry as a career and could easily destroy job satisfaction. Regardless of how you feel about universal health care, it is a rationing system. This cannot be denied. the pressure thus comes in the form of throughput, cost minimization, and greater access of care to all. I.e. spreading it around as much as possible, no matter how thin the coverage gets.
People who think getting reimbursed for therapy NOW is frustrating, will be even more dismayed when government utilitarianism comes into play. Med checks for all, and reduced access to doctoral level therapists (MD, PhD, or PsyD).
If we move to a more open system (what we have is NOT free market, not even close), mental health inclusions on policies may or may not be prioritized by the consumer. If McCain's level of choice is allowed, then people may choose limited coverage for psychiatric issues to save a few bucks. In turn, this will mean they're more reluctant to use the services of a full-fledged doctoral-level specialist. They may instead limit themselves to their PCP for med management and maybe a licensed professional counselor.
Science and current opinion on pharmacologic vs. psychotherapeutic treatment is in a pretty volatile position IMO. We had gotten to a rather complacent place with regard to psychopharmacology, to the point where anyone from any specialty thought they could treat mood disorders.
It's a lot more complex than that. And proper psychopharmacologic treatment is being revealed to be a little more difficult than 'take 2 zoloft and call me in the morning'. And even as more and more drugs are being approved for mood disorders and anything else under the sun, estimates on their efficacy are being revised, both in initial treatment and relapse prevention. Not to mention the building backlash against psychopharmacotherapeutics (probably more keenly felt in child than anywhere else).
In other words, my personal opinion is that the trend in increasing salaries over the past 10 years were based on a lot of factors that were very stable over that time period: the growth in psychopharmacotherapeutics, public awareness of mental health concerns, and of course, the shortage of psychiatrists. Almost all of those factors are destabilizing at the moment and it's hard to predict where the future lies. the only stable factor, the shortage of psychiatrists, could be made a moot point anyway depending on what kind of healthcare 'reform' we see.
