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There is a reason that doctors in the US make multiples of what doctors in Europe makes: the AMA lobbied the US CMS, back in the 1990s, to limit the number of r
by tptacek 5mo ago
There is a reason that doctors in the US make multiples of what doctors in Europe makes: the AMA lobbied the US CMS, back in the 1990s, to limit the number of residencies opened up every year, to avoid a "glut" of doctors. We have artificial scarcity of doctors.
- cogman10 5mo agoThat's part of the problem, but we also have a problem with limited medical schools in general and with those schools charging through the nose because of that scarcity. I have a nephew training to be a doctor now. He's looking at $500k in student loan debt by the end. That's a major problem.
- troosevelt 5mo agoThat's why I have ahrd time getting mad at doctors. What else are they supposed to do besides charge absurd rates?
- noitpmeder 5mo ago[flagged]
- sssilver 5mo agoWhen my surgeon charged $250,000 for my hand reconstruction surgery, how much of it did he personally pocket, and how much of that went towards that $500,000 debt vs. his brand new S-class Mercedes?
- cogman10 5mo agoDepends entirely on how he's employed. If it's his own private practice then yeah, he pockets a lot of that 250k. If he's working for a hospital, then he has basically no influence on the price he's not payed per surgery.
- s1artibartfast 5mo ago>We have artificial scarcity of doctors. What is artifical when talking about a program that subsidizes residency? Focus on limited federal residency funding seems to be a red herring. Most modern economic analyses seems to show residency programs are net profitable before federal subsidies. IMO the problem is largely structural, around how these are positions and services are handeled by regulation and insurance.
- tptacek 5mo agoThe number is deliberately set to avoid a glut of doctors. We have the opposite problem.
- s1artibartfast 5mo agoThis seems to missing the point. Why is the number of doctors so so dependent on federal residency funding (or is it?). I suspect people overweight it for reasons above. Underweight factors would the long US education path to become a doctor being twice that of many countries, and extremely high cost and high accreditation of medical schools.
- tptacek 5mo agoBecause Medicare funds residency slots. I don't really understand what you're getting at here.
- s1artibartfast 5mo agoIm asking if or how much that actually matters. Im asking if it must matter. By way of hypothetical, if we doubled residency funding. Would new doctors double, go up 10%, or stay the same? If education time and obscene school costs are the bottle neck, it might not matter much. Some 25% of residents are already paid out of pocket by hospitals because residents make hospitals money. If we cut it entirely, what would happen?
- 5mo ago