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> Doctors _should_ be a dime a dozen. They should not cost so much - because their services are valuable and therefore, more of them should be produced to make

> Doctors _should_ be a dime a dozen. They should not cost so much - because their services are valuable and therefore, more of them should be produced to make medical costs lower. Physician salaries make up about 8% of medical costs. And even if you doubled medical school class size, you wouldn’t get 2x the doctors because there aren’t enough resident slots available. And even if you had enough slots available, you’d still need to guarantee high salaries afterwards. Most people who are smart/driven enough to be doctors aren’t going to work 80-100 hours in a high stress position for 3 years if they are only going to come out making $80k. So the only way to drastically increases (3x,4x) the supply of doctors is to drastically decrease the standard of training. So you reduce residency down to 1 year and you triple the number of doctors. Now you’ve reduced the quality of doctors, and you save people less 5% in healthcare costs, but no one even notices because that number gets drowned out by the continued rise in the other 92% of healthcare costs.

alisonkisk 6y ago
You're assuming the bugs are required. Residency as it is now is a terrible system that had no need to exist in its life destroying form. The industry had already figured this out and is moving work from doctors to nurses and PAs and offshore radiologists who don't need a residency.
- learc83 6y ago
  Moving work to lower level practitioners is functionally equivalent to reducing physician requirements. Of course companies are going to do anything they can to reduce prices. And of course the industry is going to put out flattering white papers in support of their cost cost cutting measures. Yet those reduced costs haven't been passed on to consumers or measurably improved medical care, so the argument merely that the industry is doing something is a poor argument in favor of it from a consumer/public health/societal standpoint. Some companies love to outsource labor to countries with relaxed labor laws. That isn't a convincing argument against the need for labor regulations.

alisonkisk 6y ago

You're assuming the bugs are required. Residency as it is now is a terrible system that had no need to exist in its life destroying form. The industry had already figured this out and is moving work from doctors to nurses and PAs and offshore radiologists who don't need a residency.

learc83 6y ago
Moving work to lower level practitioners is functionally equivalent to reducing physician requirements. Of course companies are going to do anything they can to reduce prices. And of course the industry is going to put out flattering white papers in support of their cost cost cutting measures. Yet those reduced costs haven't been passed on to consumers or measurably improved medical care, so the argument merely that the industry is doing something is a poor argument in favor of it from a consumer/public health/societal standpoint. Some companies love to outsource labor to countries with relaxed labor laws. That isn't a convincing argument against the need for labor regulations.