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For the most part, doctors are paid fairly. If you are concerned about the high cost of healthcare, and I am also very concerned, blame the high malpractice insurance claims and hospital management for that. Malpractice insurance settlements are way too high and patients are too quick to sue. And hospitals are run for profit.
Nurses should be paid more. NPR had a program about how 70% of all Americans are overweight and the nursing staff are severely hurting their backs from moving these obese patients (yet another reason that food stamps should not be issued to anyone who is overweight).
For the most part, doctors are paid fairly. If you are concerned about the high cost of healthcare, and I am also very concerned, blame the high malpractice insurance claims and hospital management for that. Malpractice insurance settlements are way too high and patients are too quick to sue. And hospitals are run for profit.
Nurses should be paid more. NPR had a program about how 70% of all Americans are overweight and the nursing staff are severely hurting their backs from moving these obese patients (yet another reason that food stamps should not be issued to anyone who is overweight).
RN's are actually fairly well paid considering the level of education required.
It's more a question of sustainability than "overpayment." A lot of medical professionals in the US derive a lot of their income from programs and systems that are not directly subsidized by their patients. Which is to say, they are transfer programs of one type or another.
It may be the case that some of those transfer programs are simply not sustainable, financially, over time.
Other countries have a system figured out and still have doctors, but we're too "exceptional" for that to work here.
Doesn't matter.
If your family has a $1,000 monthly premium for health insurance what do you suppose we could cut that down if we went full head on Marxist threatening all doctors with death if they didn't work for free?
If we only enslaved all doctors we would be able to reduce your heath insurance premium to $920 per month which would cure everything that is wrong with our system!
The Mighty Peoples Proletariat is victorious once again! Socialism all the way!
Besides, cutting doctors’ take-home pay would not really solve the American cost crisis. The total amount Americans pay their physicians collectively represents only about 20 percent of total national health spending. Of this total, close to half is absorbed by the physicians’ practice expenses, including malpractice premiums, but excluding the amortization of college and medical-school debt.
Now if only we could not only force doctors to work for free but what if we could force everyone who worked for the doctor in the doctors office for free, force the landlord to provide the doctors office for free, force utility companies to provide all utilities for free and force medical malpractice companies to provide insurance for free then we could loser that $1,000 premium to $800 and enjoy rainbows and unicorns for the rest of our days! Of course, if you work as a receptionist, lab worker or book keeper in a doctors office your life will suck stupid, stupid, stupid Americans still think there is a free lunch.
If anything doctors are way underpaid in America today.
I'd want my doctors to be rich , wouldn't want to be under the knife relying on a surgeon that's worring about where his next mortgage payments coming from , in fact I'd want doctors to be very very rich, rich enough to be able to give their kids a great education hopefully putting them through medical school , we need good healthy wealthy doctors ..
That reminds me of the old joke:
Q: What's the definition of unnecessary surgery?
A: An operation done before the payment on the lake house is due.
Seriously, I am fine with our medical friends making lots of money. Anybody who claws their way to the top of heap deserves it.
They shouldn't have to work so damn much. The system forces them into working themselves into oblivion, and I'd rather receive care from someone rested & satisfied than a surgeon/practitioner at the end of his 14-hour shift.
The general practitioner, ER doctor, and on staff hospital internist don't get paid nearly as much as one would think, especially when you consider the very long hours hospital staff doctors put in. At our hospital, the ER doctors have a sleep room because they need to catch as much sleep as possible when there's a break between patients. Some specialist surgeons charge far too much. Something to consider is the patients they treat who won't pay their bills, the doctors do volunteer work with charity clinics and VA facilities, malpractice insurance cost, having to hire more staff to deal with insurance companies & laws, and paying back student loans. Good doctors will also continue their studies to stay abreast on the latest medical technology. Some of what they may have learned may later be proven to be wrong or a better way discovered.
1. ER docs have a fairly easy life, as they work in shifts and have days off. Most of the rest of us have no "days off" and work until the work is done, not when the noon whistle blows. I know many ER docs- they have a cush life.
2. In my state, we are the lowest reimbursed in the nation for Medicare patients. Why? Because we are rated #1 in quality and low costs, and are therefore "appropriately punished" by the feds. States with low quality ratings (New Jersey, Florida) and high inefficiency are much higher reimbursed.
3. My daughter is applying for medical school; her most likely school is $75K per year for tuition. Now how in the world does anyone (who does not have an idiot father like me) afford the $90K per year of medical educaiton (excluding undergrad) and expect to ever pay off thier debt?
4. If one instituted "salaries" for physicians (by what means, I do not know), you would certainly have fewer interventions in the US. However, you would also have physicians seeing less than half as many patients as they do now (like the VA) and thus require twice as many docs.
5. Medical overhead (office, staff salaries, malpractice) is MASSIVE and most physicians have 40-45% overhead. When one talks about 50% cuts in reimbursement, physicians would essentially be working for nothing, as overhead costs are fixed.
6. Education never stops for physicians. We have re-certs every ten years and are reading or studying constantly. Medicine (in addition to work hours) is no academic picnic, as one never stops studying.
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States with low quality ratings (New Jersey, Florida) and high inefficiency are much higher reimbursed.
