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I think it's time for us to talk about physician pay under Obamacare. Here where my husband practices, changes are already starting to sweep in and the future doesn't look good from where we sit for the medical students coming out with a lot of medical school debt. I thought this article was a good place to start!
http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/...e_whining.html
Medical doctors are highly paid professionals. They earn more money—a lot more money—than your average American. What's more, American doctors get paid more than doctors in any other country. Given how much of health care is financed either directly (Medicare, Medicaid, Veterans Affairs, public-sector workers) or indirectly (tax subsidy for employer-provided insurance) by the federal government, it's natural to make restraining doctors' income part of any program for making health care more affordable. So when you read stories about doctors whining that Affordable Care Act exchange plans don't pay them enough, please throw up a little in your mouth and proceed to ignore the doctors' complaints. The only practical reason to worry about low compensation for doctors in the ACA exchanges is it may cause them to boycott exchange patients. If that happens, the solution is to reduce doctors' payment rates elsewhere in the system. If we ever reach the point where American doctors have been squeezed so badly that they start fleeing north of the border to get higher pay in Canada, then we've squeezed too hard. Until that happens, forget about it.
But also spare a thought for the journalists. The Affordable Care Act is a big deal. ACA implementation is a big deal. People should write stories about how much doctors get paid in ACA plans. But people who write stories on this subject without noting the yawning pay gap between American doctors and doctors in Canada, France, Germany, etc. are doing their readers a disservice.
What we really ought to be doing is working to further pressure the incomes of doctors through supply-side reforms. That means letting nurse practitioners treat patients without kicking a slice upstairs to an M.D., letting more doctors immigrate to the United States, and opening more medical schools. Common sense says that since the population both grows and ages over time, there should be more people admitted to medical school today than were 30 years ago. But that's not the case. Instead we produce roughly the same number of new doctors, admissions standards have gotten tougher, and doctors have become scarcer.
Matthew Yglesias is Slate's business and economics correspondent. He is the author of The Rent Is Too Damn High.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/...e_whining.html
Medical doctors are highly paid professionals. They earn more money—a lot more money—than your average American. What's more, American doctors get paid more than doctors in any other country. Given how much of health care is financed either directly (Medicare, Medicaid, Veterans Affairs, public-sector workers) or indirectly (tax subsidy for employer-provided insurance) by the federal government, it's natural to make restraining doctors' income part of any program for making health care more affordable. So when you read stories about doctors whining that Affordable Care Act exchange plans don't pay them enough, please throw up a little in your mouth and proceed to ignore the doctors' complaints. The only practical reason to worry about low compensation for doctors in the ACA exchanges is it may cause them to boycott exchange patients. If that happens, the solution is to reduce doctors' payment rates elsewhere in the system. If we ever reach the point where American doctors have been squeezed so badly that they start fleeing north of the border to get higher pay in Canada, then we've squeezed too hard. Until that happens, forget about it.
But also spare a thought for the journalists. The Affordable Care Act is a big deal. ACA implementation is a big deal. People should write stories about how much doctors get paid in ACA plans. But people who write stories on this subject without noting the yawning pay gap between American doctors and doctors in Canada, France, Germany, etc. are doing their readers a disservice.
What we really ought to be doing is working to further pressure the incomes of doctors through supply-side reforms. That means letting nurse practitioners treat patients without kicking a slice upstairs to an M.D., letting more doctors immigrate to the United States, and opening more medical schools. Common sense says that since the population both grows and ages over time, there should be more people admitted to medical school today than were 30 years ago. But that's not the case. Instead we produce roughly the same number of new doctors, admissions standards have gotten tougher, and doctors have become scarcer.
Matthew Yglesias is Slate's business and economics correspondent. He is the author of The Rent Is Too Damn High.
I know our financial life will involve lots of planning, sacrifices, and management. I've learned lots since being on here! It's just very sad to see articles like this - and there are hundreds more out there, circulating like wildfire on FB, etc - and to know so many people have this idea and are convinced that doctors are overcompensated, money grubbing assholes. When really, they have no idea of even a fraction of what goes into this for the doctor or the family. Monetarily or otherwise. And that's not even speaking towards the real reasons healthcare costs so much. Your kid needs a $25,000+ hip surgery due to a birth defect (like my brother did in 2007)? Well, obviously your money is going straight into the ortho's bank account. What bullshit. Who honestly thinks this way? They see a $2 charge on a hospital bill for one ibuprofen and think the doctor is an underhanded sneak who's counting his dolla dolla bills sitting in his mansion - and that he's the one who decided it should cost so much...for his own gain.
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