If we were ever going to try again at changing the health care system of the United States, then we have to address the issue of the high cost of student loan debt to get a medical degree, both for existing doctors and also for those who are working their way through the education system. That's why I have the idea that some form of student loan debt forgiveness should be on the table. I know this sounds crazy coming on the heels of the Supreme Court ruling against Biden's student loan forgiveness, but in this case it is different.
It doesn't sound crazy at all, but it sounds unfair. That job is more important than others? What about the people that work in the factories that build the parts that make the life support machines and other medical equipment? Should we pay for their trade school costs? Yeah med school is expensive and medical salaries are HIGH. Sounds balanced to me Also, college costs are insane. I think some other countries do this a lot better.
If we change the health care system then a doctor's salary might not be so high. Then what would they do to pay for their education debts? It's true that doctors aren't the only ones who work in the health care sector.
Problem is that we are basically stealing all those other countries that do it better's talent. I heard fairly recently that some country (forget which one) is planning to make it illegal for people with medical degrees to emigrate for a set number of years after they graduate because it has become such a problem for them---give them free medical school and then they zip off to the US for a high paying job debt free.
Those are ALL great points. I 100% concur. Maybe we can find some happy medium between "free" and the price of a house?
@wgabrie can't pay for medical school? or nursing or dentistry? these are critical shortages in defense and in the va (and on indian reservations and many small towns. ) pay all their damn bills but with the contract to pay back in years. medical school admissions need to be lowered to some attainable standard that allows enough americans to qualify. not every md needs to be a super specialist either.. .
IDK the answer TBH other than free college and grad school which apparently there is no appetite for even if we could manage the money for it. We already pay for the lion's share of residencies to the tune of about $5B a year through Medicare and that doesn't seem to have helped the cost of going to the doctor. I guess when you come out after that many years not getting paid you are going to want the big bucks regardless. A lot of the doctors in our area have Indian/Pakistani or spanish last names. We definitely seem to be relying more and more on foreign educated people in that field. The last time I was in the ER, I had a doctor from Africa. After he left the room, the nurse explained to me what he said. I just couldn't understand his english. Maybe shorten the grad school pay back period to 20 years since doctors already have so much time under their belt training; maybe eat the unpaid interest instead of capitalizing it.
There are/were definitely programs for loan forgiveness for doctors who spends years in less lucrative positions in underserved areas. That seems fair and helpful given those jobs actually tend to be harder but pay a lot less. The military does something similar. Years of service used to pay for student loan debt.
I would agree if it weren't for the results our current system is producing. With record spending and consumption of pharma products, Americans are fatter and sicker. True "healthcare" would cost very little and require fewer doctors.
I have to disagree. Doctors only have so many hours in a day to meet with patients. There's a fixed number of time slots. As for Americans being fatter and sicker, that's actually a problem with both the food industry sector and the environment. As well as a lack of exercise.
I'm not sure how much the salary of health care providers is contributing to the high costs of medical care in the US.
Public health and healthcare aren’t quite the same. Americans being fatty and sicker is primarily a public health issue. Our environments encourage us to be sedentary, and our consumer culture encourages us to eat huge portions of rich cheap foods while our bodies were built for surviving famines. Of course we’re fat, on average. Healthcare is the last or nearly last line of defense after things go wrong for an individual. Its costs have increased for a variety of reasons, but one the entire world has to deal with is that with more capabilities come more costs. The more medical knowledge expands, the more specialized knowledge and complicated equipment is required. Increasingly miraculous interventions, but increasing costs. Most are willing to pay anything to live if the quality of life is okay, others hesitate to put a ceiling on the cost we can endure per life. A special issue with pharma though is that we allow direct to consumer ads, which incentivizes them to invest more in advertising than drug development, and this often involves drugs that aren’t actually better being promoted at high cost to society.
some advertising was once illegal, and medicine needs to be in that category. this must have been deregulated because some of the boner pills and such that they advertise can not possibly pass a "safe and effective" standard.
Direct to consumer advertising for prescription drugs is illegal in most of the world. In the developed world, I think the US and New Zealand have been the main exceptions. The issue isn't so much that the pills are dangerous, so much that advertising can be used to manipulate people into thinking they need something they don't and putting pressure on their doctors to prescribe it, who may do so if they believe it won't do much harm but otherwise would not have prescribed it. So this is a problem for two reasons. First, it leads to overprescribing things, or prescribing newer more expensive drugs that aren't significantly more effective but have a ritzy advertising campaign. Second, it leads to drug companies investing more in advertising than new drug development because good advertising is less risky than development, which may lead to another drug that is not significantly more effective. The main result is more healthcare expenses without more health benefit, but better profits for pharma.
The two are connected. Bad habits will eventually show symptoms and doctors will prescribe drugs to mask those symptoms so that the patient can comfortably continue those habits. Even after having ones chest cracked open and a bypass, 90% of patients return to the same lifestyle that created the condition. We need to make it more inconvenient to be unhealthy. Overweight people need to pay more for healthcare and those who can't afford it can work it off. (Perhaps on an elliptical or treadmill!) Its all about the money and not about our health.
