Anyone afraid of universal healthcare?

You can take a look at the salaries of drs in countries with national healthcare. Most who have private practice are swimming in money. Think back to the US in the 80s... My gyn charges me 150 euro (that almost $200) for a 15 minute visit and I am sure she us not declaring all of it. The lab fees are about 40 euro of that.

There's a ped here who charges 400 euro per visit (~$525!).

All the drs are also affiliated with a hospital for which they are also paid a state salary. I think it's less than the US (1st year attending makes about $40k) but once they have their private practice open, it's smooth sailing.

I am pretty sure that in France and Spain they make more. They definitely do in the UK.

[rainbabies]

tlew...do you and your dh plan to stay in italy?

[Momo]

I thought it was interesting to hear about & see this Dr. lifestyle...When asked the same question as the title:

http://www.npr.org/templates/dmg/dmg...o&mediaType=RM

[Vishenka69]

$40K? How do you pay loans from that? There's no way I'd put up with med school and residency hell for $40K. I'm with Heidi on this one.

[PrincessFiona]

I think you need to watch the video

Interestingly, there isn'tbe *residency hell* in germany, even for surgical residents...if you takecall as a resident, you get paid for it. Training is longer (6 years for IM instead of 4) but you are well-compensated. You get 6 weeks of vacation/year that you are expected to take and don't work > 60 hours/week. When we lived in germany > 10 years ago, the residents were earning a good 50k after internship year with higher salaries each year.

Attendings there earn >100k but have no student loans to pay off for umpteeump years (you do the math on that one, but it comes out to cash in their pockets). Additionally, their salaries don't have to be saved to pay for their kids to go to college either....cash in their pockets....

tlew...do you and your dh plan to stay in italy?

Yes. I have absolutely not desire to return to the States and DH is totally against the way that healthcare is managed there. He doesn't understand how people can be denied healthcare based on their economic status.

Also, he gets about 6 weeks of vacation per year. He leaves the house at 7:15 (he's in surgery too) and he generally comes home around 8PM. They don't do Q3-4 here and all calls are taken from home so he never sleeps at his hospital. If you operate all night, you go home the next morning and someone covers you. No one is ever in the hospital for 48 hours. Not even 24 actually.

$40K? How do you pay loans from that? There's no way I'd put up with med school and residency hell for $40K. I'm with Heidi on this one.

That's only one salary... the one from the hospital. You have to add private practice to that.

As for loans, drs here don't have them. Med school in the EU is basically free. DH paid something like $3k a year for the first 6 years, and now he pays something like $2k a year during residency (yes, residents get paid then have to pay back tuition ).

He probably makes around $3.5k per month right now. I really have no idea. It changes depending on when the insurance companies pay out. Anyway during the first 3 years, you only pay 10% income tax. Oh and actually he doesn't pay any tax on his residency salary, just on his moonlighting salary. Residents only get $1k a month, standard for all specialties since it's paid by the govt.

So basically we don't have it as hellish as most residents and their families. The only reason I never see DH is bc he moonlights so much, plus I work a lot too.

Back to the OT, I think part of the major problem with universal healthcare in the US is the malpractice insurance. One of the reasons it works here is bc we don't have to pay as high as a premium as you all do in the US. I think that we paid something like $2k this year for EUR 5M in coverage. No one ever sues for the amounts you hear about in the US. I think they've capped the damages in Europe. There was a case here where 3 people died bc they were transplant recipients from a cancer donor (no one knew she had cancer so the lab did not check for it). They all died and I think the max award was something like $200k.

[diggitydot]

If anyone's interested on more reading on this subject, here are some links:

Alliance for Health Reform - http://www.allhealth.org

American Academy of Family Physicians - http://www.aafp.org

American Medical Student Associations Health Policy Action Committee - http://www.amsa.org/hp

Center for Studying Health System Change - http://www.hschange.com

Commonwealth Fund - http://www.cmwf.org

CoverTheUninsured.com, a project of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation - http://www.covertheuninsured.org

Galen Institute - http://www.galen.org

The Heritage Foundation - http://heritage.org

Kaiser Family Foundation - http://www.kff.org

Nation Center for Policy Analysis - http://www.ncpa.org

National Health Care for the Homeless Council - http://www.nhch.org

Physicians for a National Health Program - http://www.pnhp.org

Universal Health Care Action Network - http://www.uhcan.org

Urban Institute - http://www.urban.org

World Health Organization - http://www.who.int/en