Let's take what you said apart a bit; - Doctors take busses to work: I lived in NYC and regularly saw doctors take public transportation. I also saw lawyers ta

Let's take what you said apart a bit; - Doctors take busses to work: I lived in NYC and regularly saw doctors take public transportation. I also saw lawyers take public transportation, and many other professionals do the same. Why not doctors? - "in France where a cardiologist makes less than a dental hygienist in Ohio." As someone who lived briefly in France, and who grew up with a French parent, this is either untrue, or requires a lot of context in this apples to kiwis comparison. Show me data, and also don't forget to count all the income streams a physician in France has, and the fact that they don't carry the same debt as an American doctor, and compare their income to a dental hygienist in the same region of France. - Meanwhile, patients complain that a 15-minute consultation in the U.S. costs $300. You’re not paying for the time — you’re paying for the privilege of certainty, of safety, of knowing your doctor passed through the most rigorous, exclusive system in the world. Between my wife and myself, we've lived in five countries. The skill of doctors in the US is not any better than doctors of the non-US countries we've lived. The idea that US doctors are "the best in the world" is just nationalistic. I worked in the US medical billing industry, and the idea that the US system is efficient or even fair is completely bizare to me. I current reside in Canada, where I regularly argue the health care system is broken, but compared to the US, it's still heads and tails better for the vast majority of Canadians. The Canadian system needs major reform to bring it to the level of eg a European nation, but the US is cruel. It's cruel to patients, who are regularly prevented from getting care due to financial issues. It's cruel to require patients pay so much in fees, and risk bankruptcy due to their health. It's cruel to doctors too, to force them to work with the sword of Damocles over their heads of crippling debt, an inhumane insurance system, endless amounts of paperwork, stressful schedules, etc. The cause of this miserable state in the US is clear, and has been for at fifty years. Oh and I saw the doctor earlier this week for a followup. I didn't bring my own stethoscope. I also didn't bring a credit card.