[Triggerhippie]

Additionally, the high salaries tend to attract the “best and brightest”. If you take away the financial incentive for medical professionals (which offsets the *years* of costly training), you’ll end up with a shortage of healthcare workers and, at the same time, a surplus of people lining up for “free” healthcare.

[ketsu]

Additionally, the high salaries tend to attract the “best and brightest”. If you take away the financial incentive for medical professionals (which offsets the *years* of costly training), you’ll end up with a shortage of healthcare workers and, at the same time, a surplus of people lining up for “free” healthcare.

Not necessarily true. In Japan they have a Doctors and Stewardess dating club because both professions are considered the "top" of the social ladder for men and women respectively. Doctor's wives in Japan don't seem to be lacking in prada goods either.

[newguy357]

If you take away the financial incentive for medical professionals (which offsets the *years* of costly training), you’ll end up with a shortage of healthcare workers

This is not emphasized enough. It is already happening. I know people who have decided to not go to medical school because of already declining salaries, increasing financial liability (lawsuits), and the threat of more of this as an inevitable result of further socialization of medicine. I myself recently withdrew an acceptance to medical school to pursue a more certain, more lucrative career path without as large of a threat of government take over. Who in his right mind would spend ten years and a quarter million dollars to become a government slave?