For those of you who refuse to believe single payer will cut our pay drastically, and point to Canada as an example of good pay in a socialist structure.
Guess what, the reason Canadian physician pay is relatively decent is
precisely because American pay is good and canadian docs can definitely hop the border with ease (unlike true FMGs).
Physicians in canada who have LMCC (canadian accreditation of med school/training) credentials are accepted in 44 US states. They do not need to train in residency in the US to be a practicing attending here unlike true FMGs.
See also:
Shifting tides in the emigration patterns of Canadian physicians to the United States: a cross-sectional secondary data analysis
“In Canada, a perceived surplus of physicians in the 1980s led to recommendations to limit the number of physicians by lowering medical school enrolment and reducing dependency on foreign trained physicians while also looking for other means of delivering health care [
10]. As a result, there was a 10% reduction in medical school positions and immigrant physicians coming to Canada fell from a peak of 525 in 1993 to 243 in 1999 [
11]...
The movement of physicians from Canada to the US at this time was described as a ‘brain drain’ or ‘major exit ramp’ that contributed to physician shortages [
16]...The Canadian dialogue then shifted from physician surplus to physician shortages, and many of the initiatives that were aimed at reducing physician numbers in the 1990s were reversed... Efforts at primary care reform were undertaken in most provinces and, though differing in detail,
were aimed at improving primary care physician income and providing infrastructure funding. There were initiatives to improve hospital funding intended to reduce surgical wait times for select procedures [
21].”
The bottom line: if America cuts its doctor pay you bet your sorry bottom that Canada will slash theirs as well. There would be no need for their government to keep pay high to prevent a resurgence in doctor brain drain to the USA.