3 ms·

> nurses make a ton more than I think, or some assumption above is incorrect. It could be this - plenty of nurses make well over $100k, plenty of doctors make

• onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
  Are there pensions and does this $4T figure include that? If so, that could account for a lot of the "worker compensation". But, the median wage for a medical doctor is <$250k in the US. I would be surprised if the pay amongst doctors is so unequal that the average is making >$500k. That being said, there are a ton of people who work in hospitals beside just "doctors and nurses". I wouldn't be surprised if all this factored in was close to 50% of the total pay.
  • mcguire 5y ago
    Referring to the CDC link I posted above, physician and clinical services are 20% of total medical expenses. That's your primary care physician, nurses, labs, and specialists. (Hospital care is about 33% of the total.) 20% of $4T is $800 billion. There are ~209,000 primary care doctors in the US (https://www.ahrq.gov/research/findings/factsheets/primary/pcwork1/index.html https://www.ahrq.gov/research/findings/factsheets/primary/pc...), not counting specialists, etc. Each doctor therefore is responsible for ~$4M. Assuming for no reason whatsoever that specialists and outside labs, etc., take 50% of that, each doctor's practice gets $2M. Making ye olde "everybody costs $100,000 / year" assumption, that works out to 20 people including the doctor: nurses, receptionists, lab techs, janitors, etc. Doesn't sound terribly unreasonable.