Posted on 07/29/2007 12:31:39 PM PDT by neverdem
HOW to fix the health care system?
Easy, liberals say. If Washington would just force cuts in prescription drug prices and insurance company profits, plenty of money would be left over to cover the uninsured.
Conservatives prefer to argue that the answer lies in forcing people to pay more of their own medical costs.
But many health care economists say both sides are wrong. These economists, some of whom are also doctors, say the partisan fight over insurers and drug makers is a distraction from a bigger problem: the relatively high salaries paid to American doctors, and even more importantly, the way they are compensated.
“I always find it ironic that when I go to doctor groups and such, they always talk about the cost of prescription drugs,” said Dana Goldman, director of health economics at the RAND Corporation, a nonprofit research institute in Santa Monica, Calif.
Prescription drugs cost, on average, 30 percent to 50 percent more in the United States than in Europe. But the difference in doctors’ salaries is far larger, Dr. Goldman said.
Doctors in the United States earn two to three times as much as they do in other industrialized countries. Surveys by medical-practice management groups show that American doctors make an average of $200,000 to $300,000 a year. Primary care doctors and pediatricians make less, between $125,000 and $200,000, but in specialties like radiology, physicians can take home $400,000 or more.
In Europe, however, doctors made $60,000 to $120,000 in 2002, according to a survey sponsored by the British government in 2004.
Given the years of training that doctors require and the stress and importance of their jobs, few would disagree that they should be well paid. In addition, with a year of medical school now about $30,000, many doctors leave school deeply in...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
That's why we have the best and the brightest. Not a bunch of Pakistani imports islamists as doctors.
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Screw up medicine some more, and don't be surprised when we have our own "doctors plot."
Valin, thanks for having the only story linked by the keyword doctorsplot.
Exactly! The doctors from the UK fled the National Health years ago, and moved to the U.S. From what I’ve read, the UK has a shortage of specialists.
As far as MDs being paid too much in the U.S., how much of a doctor’s salary has to go toward malpractice insurance? I doubt that John Edwards would make a good living being an ambulance chaser in a country with national health “care.”
I don’t think GP/pediatrician salaries are that high ($125,000 - 200,000). Some of the yokels working at the NY Slimes make in that range. Heck, I make over $100,000 a year just as a technical writer, and I have none of the financial risk.
What a heyday it would be for the John Edwards of the world to sue sue sue the people who take up doctoring when the best ones have decided it’s more lucrative to become hedge fund managers, lawyers, or politicians.
in england, at least, doctors get paid for their work in the nhs but also most have a private practice. 10 years ago a doctor in the nhs with a private practice as well would make well over $150,000. plus, they have junior doctors for all their call. they work 9-5 monday through friday, occassional weekends. they have no overhead. they pay no malpractice insurance.
if a physician in america makes $400K, 40-60% goes to overhead and malpractice. they are always on call. hours worked could be 80-100 per week.
the academics they quoted in this story have no clue about private practice or the actual care of patients. i’d like to see them hang up their shingle and see what happens. the ama is no better. they represent themselves and themselves alone—not physicians.
Doctors in the United States earn two to three times as much as they do in other industrialized countries. Surveys by medical-practice management groups show that American doctors make an average of $200,000 to $300,000 a year. Primary care doctors and pediatricians make less, between $125,000 and $200,000, but in specialties like radiology, physicians can take home $400,000 or more.
So what? They spend a decade or more in higher education before they can earn a living. Just what kind of people do you want to attract to the profession? After all it was third world educated phyiscians employed by the NHS in Britain that were behind the latest terrorist plots in Britain. I wonder why the NHS can't attract more native born men to the medical profession?
If it ain’t broke...
The acceptance of higher risks (malpractice suits, etc.) requires a higher compensation to make it worthwhile?
Naaahhh... That couldn’t be it.
Everything is easy in the minds of the nutroots. Just take away all of the rights of the people and we can accomplish anything we want.
there are at LEAST, 10 drugs started for every ONE that hits the market... gotta pay for that R&D somehow.
BTW, I have decided to rescind my donor status until the hospital that makes $50K off my kidney or heart gives some to my survivors.
Trials conducted in the United States are the most rigorous in the world, consisting of three distinct phases, typically involving thousands of patients. Only 11 percent of drugs that enter clinical trials are ultimately approved, and the numbers are markedly worse for cancer drugs. Anyone who argues for the unencumbered right of patients to take developmental cancer drugs must grapple with the fact that 94 percent of them will not work.
They neglect to take into account the nature of their practice - Primary Care with mostly managed care patients are not making the kind of money the Slimes is commenting on. With reimbursements declining and malpractice premiums rising (up 14% in NY State), physician salaries are a strawman argument. Once again, shame on the NY Slimes.
I thought it was less than a million.
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