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Doctors say they are the only profession that saves lives. Well they're the only profession allowed to save lives. And the only profession making money saving

Doctors say they are the only profession that saves lives. Well they're the only profession allowed to save lives. And the only profession making money saving lives. Charging for saving lives. Price discriminating to save lives. What happens when they make a mistake in what someone is able to pay? EDIT (I tried replying but can't yet): The basic solution to make medicine cheaper is supply more medics. In Chile anybody who wants to be a doctor can go to some medical school and make a pretty decent wage (but less than 20x what an American doctor makes) and help people in some role, some specialty, if that's what she really wants to do. No quota on helping people. And they get better results, lower infection rates than American hospitals, longer life expectancy, and medical school is shorter and much cheaper, like night and day. In particular maternity care is like the best in the world--I can't corroborate that but I've heard that. Lowest medicine costs in the OECD, blows every other developed country out of the water. America is the most expensive and Chile is the cheapest.

manuelabeledo 4y ago
> Charging for saving lives. Price discriminating to save lives. Most first world countries have a solution for this already. It is baffling that the US does not.
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago
  >Most first world countries have a solution for this already. Even second and third world countries have implemented this solution.
  - TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
    Part of the cost is equipment, too. Have you seen the regulations that medical equipment must meet? And the certifications that equipment requires? I’m not talking about big ticket items like MRI machines. I mean just blood pressure cuffs.
    - freeone3000 4y ago
      I promise you, Canada and Germany and Chile and France also have MRI machines and blood pressure cuffs.
      - nradov 4y ago
        Canada doesn't have enough MRI machines. Wait times are long and increasing. https://www.fraserinstitute.org/studies/waiting-your-turn-wait-times-for-health-care-in-canada-2020 https://www.fraserinstitute.org/studies/waiting-your-turn-wa... All healthcare systems impose some sort of rationing. Canada rations care by imposing long queues for non-emergency cases, with significant variations between provinces. Affluent Canadians frequently travel to the US as medical tourists and pay for treatment out of pocket in order to skip the lines. There are also major differences in MRI scanners. A 3.0T unit can produce higher resolution images than a 1.5T unit, and this makes a difference in patient care quality. Countries like Chile are more likely to have the cheaper units. https://doi.org/10.1097/rli.0000000000000801 https://doi.org/10.1097/rli.0000000000000801
        travisporter 4y ago
        Well I’m waiting in the US. Appointment times for a dermatologist are out to 6 months earliest. The Fraser institute is a libertarian think tank so even if their data is right I don’t trust their conclusion. So what if 3% of people are waiting on a procedure? This needs to be apples to apples compared to other countries, per capita healthcare spending, life expectancy before drawing conclusions
        daniel-cussen 4y ago
        Funny, I do the same thing, medical tourism in Chile. Like all Hispanics. We all get all medicine in Latin America, never in America, to the extent it's avoidable. It used to be the other way around, like I knew a kid who kept traveling for medical tourism from Chile to America because he had a rare heart thing, rare disease. There should be flying ambulances, like international flights taking emergency patients to where they can be treated economically instead of getting signature after signature squeezed out of them, one per hour starting inside the ambulance.
deleted 4y ago
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medeshago 4y ago
I'm from Chile (and still live here). I don't know where you got the idea that anybody whot wants to be a doctor can go to a medical school without much effort. Medicine is by far the most exclusive career that you can apply to, they're always the highest scores in our version of the SAT (you can check the scores that are needed for one of our universities here https://www.uchile.cl/admision-y-matriculas/admision-regular-pregrado/puntajes-de-ingreso-2021 https://www.uchile.cl/admision-y-matriculas/admision-regular...). There are some private colleges that have a lower entry barrier, but they're still far and above the rest of the careers that you can apply to. Their salaries are also ridicously higher than the rest of the population, our minimum wage is 462 USD$ and a doctor can make easily 20 times that amount (and if you're a specialist you can make way more than that). Obviously there are some cases where a doctor can earn less than that, but they are in no way or form just another professional.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- onemoresoop 4y ago
  Yes, there are plenty of people who would work in the medical field not necessarily for the big pay but because of their calling, to care for the others. A lot of these people can't make it through the med school gauntlet and don't want to risk their mental health while in med school. Plus the crazy and insanely school loans... It's a system that disincentives the people with a calling and instead is replaced by people who can put up and have a stomach for a very complicated and inefficient system. While hospitals are run by MBAs this problem will not go away.
- daniel-cussen 4y ago
  Yeah but compared to American medical schools? Whole different ball game. 10x cheaper, and longer life expectancy.
deleted 4y ago
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jodrellblank 4y ago
> "Lowest medicine costs in the OECD, blows every other developed country out of the water. America is the most expensive and Chile is the cheapest." I just happened to have this RAND corporation ranking of "most expensive insulin in the world" from 2018 handy; America is first, Chile is second. https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/cost-of-insulin-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/cost-of-i...
- spaetzleesser 4y ago
  Looking at this it’s mind boggling how much the US is being overcharged vs all other countries. How are Americans putting up with paying 400%-900% more than any other country?
  - somebodythere 4y ago
    It's not "putting up with". What are they going to do otherwise, not take insulin?
    - spaetzleesser 4y ago
      Demand action from their representatives. Works in a lot of other areas but not in health care. I guess the lobbies are too strong.
      - nybble41 4y ago
        Those so-called "representatives" created the problem in the first place by restricting the supply with drug patents, FDA regulations, import restrictions, and limitations on the number of new doctors and medical facilities, and now you want to "demand action" from them on behalf of patients? Good luck. They're representing someone all right, but it's their donors, not their official constituency. That, BTW, is a consequence of the system responsible for selecting and influencing those in power and not any particular individual, so voting in someone new won't change anything. And that goes for much more than just health care.
- 4y ago
CodeMage 4y ago
Chile might have cheaper healthcare, although I doubt it, but that's completely obscured by their health insurance. They copied the US health insurance racket almost perfectly, and that's what needs fixing much more than healthcare costs. The only real solution is to completely abolish privatized healthcare. No more discrimination between the poor and the rich when it comes to something as critical as that. When everyone has to row the same boat, then the rich will finally have a good reason to make sure the poor don't drown. EDIT: I don't remember Chile having that much cheaper healthcare, either. I lived there for 14 years and it was just as much of a constant drain on my salary as it is here in the US. And those who couldn't afford good insurance were pretty much screwed, just like here in the US. And the real costs were buried deep and obscured by insurance waffle, just like here in the US.
olalonde 4y ago
> The basic solution to make medicine cheaper is supply more medics. It's shocking how little this is talked about... This is so obviously the root of the problem. People like to blame the free market but there is no free market in medicine. Corporatism is to blame for artificially restricting the supply of doctors and artificially restricting who is allowed to render medical services, both of which benefit the corporate members, the doctors. Of course, those anti-competitive measures are always sold under the guise of protecting the population.
- nradov 4y ago
  Actually the primary bottleneck in the supply of new doctors is lack of federal (Medicare) funding for residency slots. Every year, students graduate from US accredited medical schools but are unable to enter clinical practice because they can't get matched to a residency program. Ask Congress to increase funding. https://www.ama-assn.org/press-center/press-releases/ama-fund-graduate-medical-education-address-physician-shortages https://www.ama-assn.org/press-center/press-releases/ama-fun...
  - kaesar14 4y ago
    Using an AMA source is disingenuous since it’s a professional cartel with a massive vested interest in keeping doctor supply as limited as possible.
    - teh64 4y ago
      But they are arguing in the source for more doctor supply?
      - bombcar 4y ago
        They are blaming the lack of supply on something they don't control. There's a subtle difference.
    - nradov 4y ago
      Do you have a substantive comment to contribute or are you going to stick with baseless low-effort snark? The comment I posted is true and correct. You could verify it with other independent sources if you bothered to do any research.
bell-cot 4y ago
> Doctors say they are the only profession that saves lives... Yeah. Because rescue workers, fire fighters, EMT's, nurses, etc., etc. don't count. (As if the ways in which America's medical establishment treats those people didn't make that obvious enough. And the alpha sociopath in the room always deserves 100% of the credit for anything good happening...right?) My impression is that other countries (ones not poisoned by the AMA) don't have this particular problem nearly so much.

manuelabeledo 4y ago

> Charging for saving lives. Price discriminating to save lives. Most first world countries have a solution for this already. It is baffling that the US does not.

ChuckNorris89 4y ago
>Most first world countries have a solution for this already. Even second and third world countries have implemented this solution.
- TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
  Part of the cost is equipment, too. Have you seen the regulations that medical equipment must meet? And the certifications that equipment requires? I’m not talking about big ticket items like MRI machines. I mean just blood pressure cuffs.
  - freeone3000 4y ago
    I promise you, Canada and Germany and Chile and France also have MRI machines and blood pressure cuffs.
    - nradov 4y ago
      Canada doesn't have enough MRI machines. Wait times are long and increasing. https://www.fraserinstitute.org/studies/waiting-your-turn-wait-times-for-health-care-in-canada-2020 https://www.fraserinstitute.org/studies/waiting-your-turn-wa... All healthcare systems impose some sort of rationing. Canada rations care by imposing long queues for non-emergency cases, with significant variations between provinces. Affluent Canadians frequently travel to the US as medical tourists and pay for treatment out of pocket in order to skip the lines. There are also major differences in MRI scanners. A 3.0T unit can produce higher resolution images than a 1.5T unit, and this makes a difference in patient care quality. Countries like Chile are more likely to have the cheaper units. https://doi.org/10.1097/rli.0000000000000801 https://doi.org/10.1097/rli.0000000000000801
      - travisporter 4y ago
        Well I’m waiting in the US. Appointment times for a dermatologist are out to 6 months earliest. The Fraser institute is a libertarian think tank so even if their data is right I don’t trust their conclusion. So what if 3% of people are waiting on a procedure? This needs to be apples to apples compared to other countries, per capita healthcare spending, life expectancy before drawing conclusions
      - daniel-cussen 4y ago
        Funny, I do the same thing, medical tourism in Chile. Like all Hispanics. We all get all medicine in Latin America, never in America, to the extent it's avoidable. It used to be the other way around, like I knew a kid who kept traveling for medical tourism from Chile to America because he had a rare heart thing, rare disease. There should be flying ambulances, like international flights taking emergency patients to where they can be treated economically instead of getting signature after signature squeezed out of them, one per hour starting inside the ambulance.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

medeshago 4y ago

I'm from Chile (and still live here). I don't know where you got the idea that anybody whot wants to be a doctor can go to a medical school without much effort. Medicine is by far the most exclusive career that you can apply to, they're always the highest scores in our version of the SAT (you can check the scores that are needed for one of our universities here https://www.uchile.cl/admision-y-matriculas/admision-regular-pregrado/puntajes-de-ingreso-2021 https://www.uchile.cl/admision-y-matriculas/admision-regular...). There are some private colleges that have a lower entry barrier, but they're still far and above the rest of the careers that you can apply to. Their salaries are also ridicously higher than the rest of the population, our minimum wage is 462 USD$ and a doctor can make easily 20 times that amount (and if you're a specialist you can make way more than that). Obviously there are some cases where a doctor can earn less than that, but they are in no way or form just another professional.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
onemoresoop 4y ago
Yes, there are plenty of people who would work in the medical field not necessarily for the big pay but because of their calling, to care for the others. A lot of these people can't make it through the med school gauntlet and don't want to risk their mental health while in med school. Plus the crazy and insanely school loans... It's a system that disincentives the people with a calling and instead is replaced by people who can put up and have a stomach for a very complicated and inefficient system. While hospitals are run by MBAs this problem will not go away.
daniel-cussen 4y ago
Yeah but compared to American medical schools? Whole different ball game. 10x cheaper, and longer life expectancy.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

jodrellblank 4y ago

> "Lowest medicine costs in the OECD, blows every other developed country out of the water. America is the most expensive and Chile is the cheapest." I just happened to have this RAND corporation ranking of "most expensive insulin in the world" from 2018 handy; America is first, Chile is second. https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/cost-of-insulin-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/cost-of-i...

spaetzleesser 4y ago
Looking at this it’s mind boggling how much the US is being overcharged vs all other countries. How are Americans putting up with paying 400%-900% more than any other country?
- somebodythere 4y ago
  It's not "putting up with". What are they going to do otherwise, not take insulin?
  - spaetzleesser 4y ago
    Demand action from their representatives. Works in a lot of other areas but not in health care. I guess the lobbies are too strong.
    - nybble41 4y ago
      Those so-called "representatives" created the problem in the first place by restricting the supply with drug patents, FDA regulations, import restrictions, and limitations on the number of new doctors and medical facilities, and now you want to "demand action" from them on behalf of patients? Good luck. They're representing someone all right, but it's their donors, not their official constituency. That, BTW, is a consequence of the system responsible for selecting and influencing those in power and not any particular individual, so voting in someone new won't change anything. And that goes for much more than just health care.
4y ago

CodeMage 4y ago

Chile might have cheaper healthcare, although I doubt it, but that's completely obscured by their health insurance. They copied the US health insurance racket almost perfectly, and that's what needs fixing much more than healthcare costs. The only real solution is to completely abolish privatized healthcare. No more discrimination between the poor and the rich when it comes to something as critical as that. When everyone has to row the same boat, then the rich will finally have a good reason to make sure the poor don't drown. EDIT: I don't remember Chile having that much cheaper healthcare, either. I lived there for 14 years and it was just as much of a constant drain on my salary as it is here in the US. And those who couldn't afford good insurance were pretty much screwed, just like here in the US. And the real costs were buried deep and obscured by insurance waffle, just like here in the US.

olalonde 4y ago

> The basic solution to make medicine cheaper is supply more medics. It's shocking how little this is talked about... This is so obviously the root of the problem. People like to blame the free market but there is no free market in medicine. Corporatism is to blame for artificially restricting the supply of doctors and artificially restricting who is allowed to render medical services, both of which benefit the corporate members, the doctors. Of course, those anti-competitive measures are always sold under the guise of protecting the population.

nradov 4y ago
Actually the primary bottleneck in the supply of new doctors is lack of federal (Medicare) funding for residency slots. Every year, students graduate from US accredited medical schools but are unable to enter clinical practice because they can't get matched to a residency program. Ask Congress to increase funding. https://www.ama-assn.org/press-center/press-releases/ama-fund-graduate-medical-education-address-physician-shortages https://www.ama-assn.org/press-center/press-releases/ama-fun...
- kaesar14 4y ago
  Using an AMA source is disingenuous since it’s a professional cartel with a massive vested interest in keeping doctor supply as limited as possible.
  - teh64 4y ago
    But they are arguing in the source for more doctor supply?
    - bombcar 4y ago
      They are blaming the lack of supply on something they don't control. There's a subtle difference.
  - nradov 4y ago
    Do you have a substantive comment to contribute or are you going to stick with baseless low-effort snark? The comment I posted is true and correct. You could verify it with other independent sources if you bothered to do any research.

bell-cot 4y ago

> Doctors say they are the only profession that saves lives... Yeah. Because rescue workers, fire fighters, EMT's, nurses, etc., etc. don't count. (As if the ways in which America's medical establishment treats those people didn't make that obvious enough. And the alpha sociopath in the room always deserves 100% of the credit for anything good happening...right?) My impression is that other countries (ones not poisoned by the AMA) don't have this particular problem nearly so much.