Quote:
Originally Posted by Detroitdad
What if the government provided free medical schooling and you did not have to incur such debt? That would ease the burden and drive down the "necessity" of earning a high salary.
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I agree that this would be a good thing.
Actually, the government already does pay for the medical schooling of people who also do a PhD degree (like me), in order to encourage MDs to enter research and academia. You don't have to have a PhD to do academic medicine, but it can be helpful especially for basic science work.
The point is--academic MDs make less money than private practice docs, and so the government funds these MD/PhD programs. In addition, the government will pay 35,000 dollars a year of med school debt for two years of post-graduate research to lessen the debt burden on academic docs.
Here is a question: how much has the free market driven up physician salaries? I mean--if you want to go to an accupuncturist to treat your cancer or heart disease, you could do this, and it'd probably save you money. Would it help with the disease? Not likely, unless you have an interesting placebo effect.
If you want to actually solve the problem, you need to go to someone who has significant expertise. Should there be more of these people in the country in order to drive up supply and thereby also drive down salaries? I think the answer to this question is related to access to physicians. Is there a problem getting access to a doctor? It's supply and demand, right? How difficult is it to get an appointment with a doctor if you're very sick? Compared to other countries, it's pretty darn easy to get an appointment in the states. In Canada, you might have to wait 6 months, and the doctor makes much less money. I think that reasonable access suggests that the supply of doctors is adequate, for most specialties (not for dermatology, though).
My point is: I don't think this is a supply and demand issue. I think it's a question of how valuable is the service that is being provided.