Over half of Mississippi's rural hospitals risk closing

Gaius · 2022-11-23T15:16:39.240Z

They get $218,000 a year (for 40 years) more than French doctors . . . US doctors graduate with an average less than $240,000 in med school debt. gimme a break. They break even by their first summer.

But as I said if you would like to slash doctor salaries 70% for life (down to French levels) in exchange for given them $240,000 worth of free med school be my guest.

What happened to our steel industry when we paid our steel workers many times the world average?

zantax · 2022-11-23T15:16:41.315Z

Doubtful my daughter will make more as a doctor than her dad did in finance with a basic four year degree.

zantax · 2022-11-23T15:18:25.889Z

Gaius:

They get $218,000 a year (for 40 years) more than French doctors . . . US doctors graduate with an average less than $240,000 in med school debt. gimme a break. They break even by their first summer.

But as I said if you would like to slash doctor salaries 70% for life (down to French levels) in exchange for given them $240,000 worth of free med school be my guest.

What happened to our steel industry when we paid our steel workers many times the world average?

That not how debt works, they don’t have the cash to pay it off in a lump sum, consequently they pay years of interest. If you want the top people to go into medicine they have to be getting the top salaries in the country, it’s that simple. It wouldn’t be my career choice if my sole goal was higher income, much easier ways to make more in this country.

Camp · 2022-11-23T15:20:38.897Z

I thought it was closer to 70%. Either way its MOSTLY socialized.

Don’t expect much.

zantax · 2022-11-23T15:21:46.525Z

You have to remember we are talking the most academically gifted, most of them would not have any problem graduating top of their class and landing hedge fund jobs instead.

Guvnah · 2022-11-23T15:21:48.837Z

zantax:

Nobody is going to waste four or more years in med school for less in the US.

Plus startup costs for a practice. And especially, plus malpractice insurance.

Gaius · 2022-11-23T15:22:16.177Z

Possible.

I’m not mad at doctors or anything.

I get upset at folks who blame the private insurance industry when
66% of the insurance payments are made by the government
US doctors get 3 times what French doctors get, and
we have the world’s only jackpot lawsuit industry.

The real costs are obvious.
Distracting from those obvious problems for political gains is criminal.

zantax · 2022-11-23T15:24:24.952Z

Guvnah:

zantax:

Nobody is going to waste four or more years in med school for less in the US.

Plus startup costs for a practice. And especially, plus malpractice insurance.

And it’s not just four either, then you have three years as a crappy pay intern. More for specialists. Already like roughly 30-40 percent of doctors say if they had it do over they wouldn’t choose the profession. Every general practitioner my daughter talked to prior to going to med school told her to pick something else. But she wasn’t in it for the money and really, given her personality and make up she had no choice, she is driven to heal and help people. She will deserve every dime she earns and the people lucky enough to get her services will be getting a bargain.

Guvnah · 2022-11-23T15:29:35.897Z

WuWei:

Averages are tricky.

Especially when it is used in isolation.

Startup costs for a practice can be like a whole mortgage. Ditto a quarter million in education debt once they graduate. Tack on 25-50K in annual malpractice insurance for a lot of doctors.

But too many people just see the average income, and default to class warfare.

zantax · 2022-11-23T15:31:24.535Z

Takes a ridiculously high salary to justify sitting out of the work place for ten or fifteen years.

Guvnah · 2022-11-23T15:37:05.126Z

BTW, once you become a doctor, you have to keep up with the latest training, procedures, practices…

We want our doctors to be perfect. If they make a mistake, we want to sue the hell out of them. (Thus, the high malpractice insurance rates, to address our litigious society.) We want it all from them.

But now it seems we don’t want to pay them for it.

Gaius · 2022-11-23T15:37:53.421Z

Guvnah:

WuWei:

Averages are tricky.

Especially when it is used in isolation.

Startup costs for a practice can be like a whole mortgage. Ditto a quarter million in education debt once they graduate. Tack on 25-50K in annual malpractice insurance for a lot of doctors.

But too many people just see the average income, and default to class warfare.

No class warfare on my part (although it is understandable you might think that of me.) I am merely trying to point out how obvious it is that blaming “the corporate insurance industry” is way way way off base.

zantax · 2022-11-23T15:41:30.518Z

Gaius:

Guvnah:

WuWei:

Averages are tricky.

Especially when it is used in isolation.

Startup costs for a practice can be like a whole mortgage. Ditto a quarter million in education debt once they graduate. Tack on 25-50K in annual malpractice insurance for a lot of doctors.

But too many people just see the average income, and default to class warfare.

No class warfare on my part (although it is understandable you might think that of me.) I am merely trying to point out how obvious it is that blaming “the corporate insurance industry” is way way way off base.

So is blaming doctor salaries, they account for around ten percent of medical costs, cut them in half and you save five percent, which inflation will erase in one year. Or less, definitely less given medical inflation rates.

zantax · 2022-11-23T15:43:31.774Z

A lot of it is what they are doing with my mother right now, giant gobs of government money being spent to give her a few more pain wracked months at end of life.

Guvnah · 2022-11-23T15:48:27.156Z

Gaius:

I am merely trying to point out how obvious it is that blaming “the corporate insurance industry” is way way way off base.

Yeah, I think that’s off base too.

DougBH · 2022-11-23T18:59:35.932Z

Ben_Natuf:

its a good thing we paid for their student loans so they don’t need more government money

Mississippi had a program that paid for doctors student loans for poor areas. This seems to have been discontinued.
I hope you are not talking about that $10,000 grant by Biden that has been blocked in court.

https://www.msfinancialaid.org/state-medical-education-forgivable-loan-med/

WorldWatcher · 2022-11-23T19:01:11.893Z

Just to point out.

After the 200+K debt to get through medical school, there is another 3-7 years of residency before becoming a full fledged independent doctor.

WW

DougBH · 2022-11-23T19:06:47.212Z

Wages and salaries account for 56% of hospital costs.

Definitive Healthcare

Top hospitals by total operating expense

Learn about the top 20 hospitals in the U.S. by total operating expenses in 2021.

zantax · 2022-11-23T19:09:29.600Z

DougBH:

Wages and salaries account for 56% of hospital costs.

https://www.definitivehc.com/resources/healthcare-insights/top-hospitals-total-operating-expense#:~:text=Wages%20and%20benefits,equipment%20used%20to%20provide%20care

More then just doctors work at hospitals.

Gaius · 2022-11-23T19:16:09.719Z

WorldWatcher:

Just to point out.

After the 200+K debt to get through medical school, there is another 3-7 years of residency before becoming a full fledged independent doctor.

WW

EVERY field from plumbing to teaching to being a cop comes with substantial promotions and pay increases when you have adequate experience. Doctors are not even mildly unique in that regard.

EVERY country has some form of residency. US doctors are not at all unique in that regard.
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I generally find it does not matter what you and i think is fair. Maybe you think it is fair that US doctors get more than 3 times what French doctors do and maybe I don’t. What does matter is supply and demand not our ideas of fairness.
We import doctors by the planeload (we don’t produce enough of them.)

In the US foreign-born doctors are

50% of those practicing geriatric medicine,
40% of those practicing critical care, and
25% of general practitioners.

Even so we still have a massive shortage of doctors and need a 40% increase just to match the standards of other developed nations. We are Namibia!

It is easy to imagine that if food supplies or oil supplies or internet service were cut that deeply, prices of those things would increase 200-300%. That is exactly precisely what is happening to us in medicine.We are Paraguay!