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Doctors are the highest paid career, if you have no concept of opportunity cost. To earn a surgeon’s salary, you need a surgeon’s training. In the US, that mean

Doctors are the highest paid career, if you have no concept of opportunity cost. To earn a surgeon’s salary, you need a surgeon’s training. In the US, that means 4 years undergrad, 4 years of medical school, 4 years of medical residency, and often a few more years of specialty fellowship. My wife will have racked up $300k of debt and done 14 years of training before earning her first year of a “surgeon’s salary”. I suspect a tech salary earned 10-14 years earlier, and earned for 10-14 years running, without debt, combined with smart savings and the miracle of compound interest, will beat her every time.

Scoundreller 7y ago
The training requirements aren’t much different in other OECD countries. Their med schools and residencies are still at capacity. Their outcomes are better and their doctors are paid much less, but still more than most others.
- pixelmonkey 7y ago
  I doubt the outcomes being better has much to do with the lower physician pay. But it wouldn’t surprise me that you can “get away” with paying doctors less, while maintaining outcomes above some level. My question is: why bother? Or, put another way, what if we paid them more, reduced their hours, and had more of them? What might that do for outcomes — especially since physician salaries are a rounding error of total healthcare system costs, and since the best and brightest working in medicine means more patient lives saved and more physician happiness?
  - rland 7y ago
    1) is it a rounding error? There are a lot of doctors, every one of them making a lot of money. I don’t know but every doctor making a lot more every year has got to add up. 2) Doctors are overtrained. This is by design, to keep salaries high. Nothing about their job demands the salary they command other than the artificial scarcity imposed by regulation. How about: streamline the process of becoming a doctor; remove 4 year degree requirement, lower cost of med school or make it free. This has the benefit of both improving care (more doctors/patient) and making care cheaper (fewer ludicrous salaries). Absolutely I believe doctor pay is a big part of the racket on the hospitals end. A fair amount of it goes to the higher education racket via student loans, but I guess that is a different problem.
    - pixelmonkey 7y ago
      "Is it a rounding error?" Likely yes: https://i2.wp.com/www.dgarciamd.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/chart-Administrator-cost.png https://i2.wp.com/www.dgarciamd.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/... "There are a lot of doctors, every one of them making a lot of money." So what? That's the way it is supposed to work for highly skilled jobs adding tons of societal value in our capitalist society. What, sacrificing your 20s and 30s isn't enough for you? You also want doctors to sacrifice their future, their comfort into adulthood, and their retirement? All the while keeping a steady hand on the scalpel while they operate on you and your children? There is nothing wrong with well trained and well skilled people getting paid to do what they love -- especially if that hugely benefits society. Go looking for overpaid waste in leech sectors like finance and insurance instead. I agree with you on the rest. Doctor pay isn't a "racket" though -- you are seeking the wrong boogeyman. Remember, in the healthcare system, they are the ones adding so much of the value, at the cost of personal time, training time, opportunity cost, and emotional cost. Can the same be said by the millions of administrators in the back office of highly profitable private insurers?

Scoundreller 7y ago

The training requirements aren’t much different in other OECD countries. Their med schools and residencies are still at capacity. Their outcomes are better and their doctors are paid much less, but still more than most others.

pixelmonkey 7y ago
I doubt the outcomes being better has much to do with the lower physician pay. But it wouldn’t surprise me that you can “get away” with paying doctors less, while maintaining outcomes above some level. My question is: why bother? Or, put another way, what if we paid them more, reduced their hours, and had more of them? What might that do for outcomes — especially since physician salaries are a rounding error of total healthcare system costs, and since the best and brightest working in medicine means more patient lives saved and more physician happiness?
- rland 7y ago
  1) is it a rounding error? There are a lot of doctors, every one of them making a lot of money. I don’t know but every doctor making a lot more every year has got to add up. 2) Doctors are overtrained. This is by design, to keep salaries high. Nothing about their job demands the salary they command other than the artificial scarcity imposed by regulation. How about: streamline the process of becoming a doctor; remove 4 year degree requirement, lower cost of med school or make it free. This has the benefit of both improving care (more doctors/patient) and making care cheaper (fewer ludicrous salaries). Absolutely I believe doctor pay is a big part of the racket on the hospitals end. A fair amount of it goes to the higher education racket via student loans, but I guess that is a different problem.
  - pixelmonkey 7y ago
    "Is it a rounding error?" Likely yes: https://i2.wp.com/www.dgarciamd.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/chart-Administrator-cost.png https://i2.wp.com/www.dgarciamd.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/... "There are a lot of doctors, every one of them making a lot of money." So what? That's the way it is supposed to work for highly skilled jobs adding tons of societal value in our capitalist society. What, sacrificing your 20s and 30s isn't enough for you? You also want doctors to sacrifice their future, their comfort into adulthood, and their retirement? All the while keeping a steady hand on the scalpel while they operate on you and your children? There is nothing wrong with well trained and well skilled people getting paid to do what they love -- especially if that hugely benefits society. Go looking for overpaid waste in leech sectors like finance and insurance instead. I agree with you on the rest. Doctor pay isn't a "racket" though -- you are seeking the wrong boogeyman. Remember, in the healthcare system, they are the ones adding so much of the value, at the cost of personal time, training time, opportunity cost, and emotional cost. Can the same be said by the millions of administrators in the back office of highly profitable private insurers?