>> For one, doctors educational costs are astronomical in the U.S compared to other countries.
Doesn't this apply to all US educational costs (at the college level)? On the other hand doctors in the US seem to get paid a lot more than in, say, the UK.
>> "The reason the EU model works is that doctors (and other medical professionals) get paid less. A quick google search suggests a US ER doctor or radiologist gets paid more than 3x what a British one does, a family practitioner 2x."
I'm not sure if you were posing this as a problem or not but as long as doctors want to work for the NHS it isn't one.
> That's the goal!! Very high doctor pay is the number 1 cause of skyrocketing medical expenses.
Exactly! I can't think of any other country where doctors routinely make 15-20x minimum wage, and people become doctors predominantly to make a lot of money. In most countries, doctors make very good money, but not 15-20x minimum wage good. In Western Europe, for example, it's more of 5-8x minimum wage.
> I know some doctors in France well, they're extremely poorly paid compared to doctors in the same practice in the US.
French doctors still in the top 5% of earners in France, even higher when it comes to revenue from work. And the schools have to reject like 80% of the students at the end of first year.
> American physicians also work almost teice as many hours as their European counterparts which would increase their incomes.
I’d be curious as to where you got that. I was personally suprised to discover that in Germany, doctors in university hospitals can work up to 80 hours a week.
> The end result is that the profession makes a lot more money than it does in other countries.
I don't doubt that, but it's worth pointing out that they make good money - as they should - in other places too. My wife has a family friend in Italy, who has a ski house up in the mountains a motorboat on the Po river delta and regularly goes on fancy vacations. And that's as a general practitioner. I think most of us want doctors to be well compensated for the service they perform and would be wary of a system where that's not the case.
> Sure, but when the salaries are too low like they are in Southeastern Europe doctors don't want to schedule surgeries
Nobody is saying to pay doctors according to undeveloped country standards. We're talking about developed countries with similar if not better health outcomes.
> But I'm pretty sure they make far more in the US than anywhere else in the world.
Yea, but the opportunity cost of getting there is huge. At graduation, most doctors are in the ballpark of $1MM behind where they'd be if they went straight into a professional career.
Also, doctor's salaries only account for 8% to 20% of total healthcare costs.
>> Doctors are already paid absurd salaries in the US
>To put it in context, when I finish all my training, I will owe over $600,000.
> It's not the doctors being "paid absurd salaries" that makes medical care in this country expensive. It's lawyers - malpractice insurance can take upwards of 25+% of your income - and it's insurance companies, who have shareholders they are responsible to, and it's hospital administration, whose positions keep multiplying.
It's a red herring. If you compare physician compensation in the UK to the US, the costs of medical education are made up within the first ten years. Yes, even after malpractice insurance. Hospital administrators are also wildly overpaid, but there just aren't as many of them. Physician compensation as compared to foreign doctors, which get the same or better results, is just too large a piece of the pie to brush under the rug by pointing at other problems.
I doubt that's the majority of the massive cost difference.
> For instance: Western european doctors do not need a 4-year bachelors degree just to _enter_ medical school.
Don't know where you are basing this but in France, Pharmacist is High School Diploma + 6 years or + 9 year depending on the specialty. So you get out at 24 or 27 year old (best scenario), I doubt that's longer in the US or otherwise there's a big problem there.
> doctors dont automatically become millionaires collecting vintage cars or buying private planes
Yes, instead they make less than new grads working in literally any white collar field in the US, less than nurses in the US, and less than most blue collar trades in the US [1]. 91k GBP for the highest pay grade specialist doctor is just sad given how much training you need to become a specialist. That doctor could be making millions here in the US with their own practice.
GPs in the US (lowest paid specialty) get paid 2-3x what GPs get paid in the UK, according to the NHS payscales.
I think doctors working 80 hour residencies and grinding through med school deserve to get paid more, don't you think?
> Is grinding thru med school somewhat sacred? should they earn more than EEs? civil engineers? architects?
Everyone you mentioned should (and does in the US) earn more than 90k GBP. Nurses in the US (at least in California where they make 50-60$/h) earn the same as top pay grade specialty doctors in the UK according to that NHS payscale.
> yes, fixing noses or fake tits
No, there are many specialties which don't involve plastic surgery but make millions. Cardiologist, dermatologist, dentist, etc. Or if you're a surgeon and work at a big hospital, you can also make 500k+. All of these involve mitigating pain and suffering and saving lives.
Sorry you think plastic surgery is the only way to earn a good living in medicine.
> like almost everyone else. Newsflash - US is really expensive.
Compared to what, London? Amsterdam? Paris? The US isn't more expensive than anywhere else, and for a doctor working in the suburbs, it's way cheaper than any major city in Europe. Don't forget, health insurance for white collar workers in the US is cheap compared to their salary, and taxes are lower. Energy costs as well. And a 401k is a lot cheaper than paying progressive social security taxes that redistribute earnings.
At least the US doctor can afford a house, whereas the UK one will never buy one within an hour's drive of London in their lifetime.
"The problem is American doctors are smug elitist's who believe they're worth half a million dollars a year and american society believes they're worth it too (possibly through watching too much medical dramas on television).
Every other country in the world treats theur doctor's as humanitarians who deserve an above average but honest wage."
After at least 10 years of schooling (plus the debt), grueling work, and 12+ hour work days for many years, doctor's deserve the high wage. When you first start out as a doctor, you don't get that much. It only happens after specialization.
Other countries also pay developers $5/hour and you forget to mention that the cost of living in many "other countries" is significantly lower.
> So… go ahead and share your ideas for paying doctors and hospitals less, because otherwise you’re talking about stuff which doesn’t amount to much!
Think twice before you ask for it - you might get it.
I often hear that doctors in US make more than they should. Compared to what? My significant other is a practicing physician in a second highly compensated (after surgeons) medical specialty. Besides her daily work she has at least one (sometimes two) night calls a week in the hospital plus another one or two calls from home (should be back to the H on a 30 minutes notice). I am embarrassed that as a computer scientist I make more than her working from home in a comfy chair in front of a screen. Paying doctors less than other skills professions is a sure way to guarantee that the next generation of doctors will be composed from the folks that could not make it into the "better" professions. Don't forget there is no "restart" button on a human corpse after failed surgery. You want a person holding your life in their hands to be top notch.
Last thing to point out: even in equitable societies like Western Europe doctors make more compared to other skilled professionals like software engineers. America is unique that FAANG pays more to their engineers that Mayo Clinic to its physicians.
> Entry to medical school is also extremely competitive in Western Europe and there are also limits on number of places in some countries. And there are shortages of doctors as well.
USA has much less doctors per capita than Europe though, so the problem isn't the same. It would be nice to have more doctors in Europe, but in USA it is a critical problem.
Isn't it worst that doctors are paid if you are not healthy? Doesn't it create an incentive for them to prevent you from being completely healthy?
Anyway, most countries in Europe pay their doctors regardless of you health status and that money comes out directly of taxpayers' pockets whom most of them are 100% happy to make it that way
> What success do they gain from being a doctor in a country which prevents them from being rewarded for it?
Hmm, do you think most doctors in the U.S. are only in it for monetary rewards, and don't find any other part of the job rewarding? I don't think I want that doctor.
I'm not sure that comparing absolute amounts between countries makes a lot of sense. And doctors would still likely be in top 1% to 5% also in Europe.
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