6 ms·
The reason the cost of healthcare is so high is because medicare pays roughly 15% of a bill, others are somewhere between 20-50% of a bill depending. That is to
by Bamafan 13y ago
The reason the cost of healthcare is so high is because medicare pays roughly 15% of a bill, others are somewhere between 20-50% of a bill depending. That is to say if the doctor charges you $40,000 you pay your 10% co-pay of $4,000 and the insurance then only pays maybe another $8,000.
Another reason is the supply of doctors is artificially restricted by the AMA.
- toomuchtodo 13y agoSo we replace doctors with software. Will it be perfect? Not at first. But eventually...
- newbie12 13y agoThe same self-interested political forces that keep the number of doctors low are also fighting against automation.
- lifeisstillgood 13y agoOh that's just utter nonsense. Automation (especially in diagnosis) is welcomed and supported by the medical profession. Some vague idea of walking up to a kiosk and the computer telling you your condition and dispensing pills is opposed by everyone apart from the CEOs of kiosk makers
- riahi 13y agoThe supply of doctors is not restricted by the AMA. The supply of doctors is determined by the number of residency spots available to new graduates; that number is entirely determined by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS). Thanks to the Balance Budget Act of 1997, Graduate Medical Education (GME) was dramatically slowed due to decreases in Medicare funding of residency positions. [1] As long as we require physicians to be US trained and to have completed a US residency, the bottleneck will be GME funding. To fix that, the AMA or any other concerned citizen can lobby Congress for an increase. [1]: http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=182532 http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=182532
- Bamafan 13y agoI wasn't referring to residency spots at accredited medical schools. I was referring to medical school accreditation itself.
- mbreese 13y agoMedical schools are free to set their own limits on the number of students they admit. But they aren't going to admit more students than they predict can find a residency spot. It would look bad to have a high percentage of your students not be able to find a residency. The real reason why there are fewer doctors is that it simply doesn't make any economic sense to be a doctor anymore. You need too much school, at too high a price, and you push off any real earning potential 6-9 years away from your peers. If you specialize, you can add an extra 2-4 years on top of that. And you really don't make enough over the long run to justify the lost opportunity costs. So yes, there is a shortage of doctors, but that isn't going to change anytime soon.
- bradleyjg 13y agoSheer and utter nonsense. First there are a huge number of students who wish to go to medical school and don't get in. There's no shortage of applicants at all. Second the incredibly high compensation for speciality doctors quickly overcomes both opportunity cost and tuition costs as compared to almost any other profession. I encourage you to run the numbers. You will find that $250k/year catches up very quickly to $100k/year even with a 10 year head start and $300,000 in extra debt.
- arethuza 13y agoOut of interest, is there any good reason why medical degrees have to be done as second degrees in the US? Doesn't that add hugely to the cost of becoming a doctor?
- mbreese 13y agoI encourage you to talk to some doctors. No one makes $250k per year, except maybe a few surgery specialists (and maybe ER). Primary care doctors (the ones that where there actually is a shortage) can can easily start at under $100k and the max can be below $200k. And if you are a pediatrician or a pediatric specialist, expect to take a cut in pay relative to your adult colleagues.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]