If da US adopts universal healthcare, how much will Doctors salary decrease, will there be a shortage of Docs?

Answer 1

Quite frankly, doctors really don't make a lot of money. What people fail to realize is that most doctors make meager wages in the beginning. Between the redicullously long hours, the massive amounts they have to pay for medical insurance, having to pay back school loans that easily can top 200 grand, they don't actually make a lot. The only way you can really make any money from what I was told by doctors is if you either specialize in something like neurology or cardiology, (for which insurance can be about 80K a year) become head of some department in a hospital, or go into private practice. Otherwise, doctors don't make as much as you may think.

I think the best kind of Universal healthcare that would work for the US is the US creates is own insurance policy that all doctors are obligated to take. Citizens can opt out of it if they choose. You can purchase a private insurance plan instead of the governmental one, or you can have a govenmental one with private insurance as a supplemental insurance. The governmental plan would allow co-pays based on your ability to pay. I think that would probably be the most fair option instead of mandating Universal coverage or tax breaks to buy your own insurance.

Answer 2

Price controls and reimbursement rates kill doctors' salaries. In order to try and hold down the program costs, the government will do the same thing that it does with Medicare & Medicaid. When a procedure costs $1000 and the government says, we will pay $750 then doctors either have to eat the $250 or charge everyone not on government insurance $1250 to make up the difference. This is what we have now and is the source of some price inflation in the marketplace. If there is no one to pay the extra $250, that cost has to be eaten by the doctors or their staff. There are many other problems with Universal Healthcare, but I hope this helped to answer your question. If you though healthcare was expensive before, wait until it is free.

Answer 3

This same argument existed when Medicare was first created as well. As it turns out, after all these years, it didn't have much effect at all.

On the one hand, it's true that there would probably be reduced fees for physician services.

Balance that, however, with the idea that doctor offices would no longer have to spend so much time, energy, and money on negotiating with insurance companies, hassling with insurance companies, and trying to collect payments from insurance companies. Not to mention those without insurance (or money) for whom money may never get collected.

Administration would be so much easier and doctors could focus on what they do best, which is medicine. Incidentally, many leave the profession now (and support universal care) because of all of the hassle involved with our burdensome system.

Answer 4

Probably won't.
There are many different types of universal health care ideas, that do not require socialized medical programs.
One such program, is to work along with employers, and other organizations, giving tax incentives for carrying group policies, while changing the current medicare program into a program that is handled by private insurance carriers.
This would save tax payer an enormous amount of money, because it would offer welfare recipients an incentive to not run to the emergency room every time they need a band aid.
This is what causes most of the high health care currently, in the USA.
If welfare recipients had any incentive to go to a private practitioner, rather than emergency room for every cough, that may reduce the health care costs of welfare recipients to 1/3 of what it currently is. This would allow many more people to be covered under a group health care policy, that otherwise wouldn't be able to afford one.
Not only would this decrease the amount of workload in the emergency room, bringing health care costs down for many, it would also stimulate the economy by reducing bankruptcies related to health care bills.

You need to quit falling for the hype of people who call it "socialized medicine", because not all candidates have that in mind.

Answer 5

Well, first of all, doctors make an AWFUL lot of money these days. It's all a matter of perspective here. You can see from the Soviet Union that people that are paid crap wages do crap work.

However, health care run in a way that insures everyone is the only answer to our current problem. We find ways of making it work. HMO's are care deniers, and insurance companies are the closest thing to legal protection rackets a la the Mafia that has ever existed. Way too many people that DO work for a living can't afford their health care. And that is something the government should be doing something about.

The need for qualified doctors in our health care system is very important, and as sure as anything, you can't pay them crap wages like we do our teachers. However, you'll find that people get a fixed salary as Congressmen, Presidents, Supreme Court Justices and so on. There is a salary that would make sense to a lot of them, and the others are just greedy and don't belong in the business of healing the sick.

They swear to the Hippocratic Oath, not the Hypocritic Oath.

Answer 6

There is a current shortage of doctors in the USA this is why we are importing them from Asia. Doctors have been ruining it for themselves for years. They charge exorbitant fees and give marginal service. Of the five doctors I use only one is decent. The others charge through the nose and give me lousy health care....yet their fees go up every six months. My family doctor is a pill dispenser. He gives me less than 10 minutes and rarely examines me. I talk..he gives me a pill. I talk some more. He gives me another pill. Do I take these pills or even have them filled? No way!

Answer 7

Uh, guys? Did you happen to notice that the current system of private insurance "messes" with the free market too? Insurance companies limit what they will pay doctors, and often limit which doctors a patient can see. The idea that this isn't already happening is naive.

Answer 8

Universal healthcare has nothing to do with the medical industry. It is aimed at the healthcare insurance industry. Doctors don't work for the insurance companies. The term socialized medicine does not apply to unversal healthcare coverage. It's socialized insurance, more correctly.

Answer 9

Tampering with the market in health care delivery is bound to have a disruptive effect on service. Here in Canada we have terrible problems with shortages of both doctors and nurses and long line ups for diagnosis and treatment. People who can afford to, including prominent politicians who condemn private health care, travel to the US so they can get the care they need.

Don't believe anyone who tells you different. As a Canadian I know that (1) it isn't "free" if it costs billions and billions each year in extra taxes and (2) it isn't good if you have to leave the country to get proper treatment.

Answer 10

Odds are the salary will not decrease, just the taxpayer will pay more to cover the expenses.