US doctor salaries and cost of care

https://www.medpagetoday.com/popmedicine/popmedicine/96891

Note that these are average salaries.

"Plastic surgeons have an average annual salary of $526,000"
"Orthopedic surgeons have an average annual salary of $511,000"
"Dermatologists have an average annual salary of $394,000 per year"

Little wonder, when combined with exhorbitant drug pricing, armies of "billing specialists" to deal with insurance and bill collection, and layers of management that health insurance for a family of 4 costs $25k+ per year.

Land of the (not) free (at the point of service).

 

Interesting. I'm curious what % of health care costs go to doctors' salaries. When I broke my hip, the hospital bill was $45k for 3 days, and $2500 for 2 orthopedics to perform the surgery.

 

Mental. Come live in Europe. I don’t understand how such salaries and costs are even possible.
Even costly medications are impossibly more expensive there.
Outrageous.

 

Not sure what the point is. US health care costs a fortune? We know.

 

And yet nothing is done about it. How do lower class people even do? This whole US system is just not fair. I just don’t get it, sorry.

 

lower class ? trailor trash & rednecks ?

 

This is where the Tories want to take health in the U.K.

 

Don’t let them. Sack the Tories.

 

We are luckier in the UK but it depends on your particular health requirements. A friend of mine has just paid 15 grand for a new hip and another 15 grand for a new knee. Lucky for her she had life savings.
You could wait for free NHS treatment but then that might be up to two years of pain and inconvenience and the condition may worsen beyond repair in that time.

On the other hand the OH had to ring 999 when experiencing acute chest pain. Within 5 hours was on the operating table, at 2 in the morning, undergoing heart micro surgery.
Highly specialised work almost immediately applied, bearing in mind time to diagnose and ambulance journey time. Totally free of charge.

There is a lot of adverse press about the NHS but in the latter case we were quite surprised at the quality and cost-free instant accessibility of the service.

 

Not sure that that the NHS is any more safe in Labour’s hands. Starmer has talked about reforming the NHS in the same paragraph as he praises Blair; cue more PFI

 

There's a big difference between PFI and taxpayer overspending on new hospitals and a cancer diagnosis meaning you have to sell your house.

 

That’s a country I’d never want to live in. Ever. With my job I wouldn’t even be able to pay for my medication in the US.

 

I’m not sure I even want to visit it.

I’m quite sure it is, in many ways, a marvellous country but it is very screwed up in some important aspects. You’d hope not to find yourself caught up in that, but why take the risk? And the way things are at the moment, I feel like staying away is a small way I can express my lack of support for the way the country has gone. Nobody will notice, but if all of us with misgivings about the trajectory it is on were to do the same…

 

Yes, there is, thankfully, still a big difference between the UK and the US, but any step towards US style health is a step in the wrong direction

 

There are at least three vested interests at work here which result in the ‘need’ for these high salaries. As well as the medical profession themselves, there are the insurance companies (those doctors will pay very high premiums in case anything goes wrong) and of course the legal profession when things don’t work out. It’s mad and I hope the UK doesn’t end up like the US.

 

Our great grandchild had to go to the states for soft-tissue cancer close to the eye/brain. It was paid for by the NHS. I had to go 200 miles to get a scan that was only available though private funded medicine but was paid for by the NHS. In the real world it’s complicated. Pragmatism not political postering please: the NHS, like the BBC, are, in the round, huge successes.

 

It’s a big con, at the end of WW2 Truman tried to enact universal health care but the AMA and vested interests played the communist card and that has been the stick used to beat that horse ever since. Johnson got the Medicare through for the over 65’s, Clinton failed to get anything through, Obama got a watered down ACA through but it was hated by Republicans, no surprise. As the Orange ogre hated Obama he tried his best to water it down, so it has been left to individual States to do what they can.
I don’t know how bad it has to get before anything changes for the better, especially as the political landscape has become so toxic recently.
Apologies for a somewhat simplistic reply, of course it’s more complicated but it’s a bit like gun control - the majority are for it but they who bribe / finance the elections and have lobbying access get to call the shots as I suspect that the adoption of universal health care could be a game changer for public life in the US.

 

It's odd but two weeks ago my mum fell playing badminton at 76yrs and broke her hip. Taken to Royal in Glasgow hospital, found early osteoporosis so by Thursday she had a new hip. Seems that if you are in pain and on a waiting list there is a simple, if drastic, solution.

In addition to stories of how good the NHS are, they've been wonderful with my 10wk premature son who was in intensive for 6weeks, incubator and all and care couldn't have been better. He's a fighter but can't imagine that in the US.

On the insurance point, better jobs have insurance 'paid' by employers. Of course that basically means they take it off your salary. My friend from California was amazed when visiting, his boy was really ill so he took him to A&E in Inverness but was told he had to pay being American. They ran every test and he had to pay £1500......

Oops sorry, missed out the decimal point....he paid £15.00. Needless to say he put his credit card away and paid cash.

 

My U.K. daughter went to NYU for surgery on a brain tumour.
U.K. docs said nothing could be done for her and to take her home and make her comfortable as she died.
U.K. gov accepted that US had treatments they could not match and funded her treatment.
28 years later she is a qualified solicitor.
On the other hand my son living and working in NY needed a crown. His insurance paid half. He stumped up the other half - $2000!
Health provision is complicated.

 

Well, I have not seen the hospital a week the Brexit bus promised....