On Sun, May 3, 2009 at 12:55 AM, Judah McAuley <[email protected]> wrote:
> > On Sat, May 2, 2009 at 8:40 PM, Scott Stroz <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > Sorry, but when even the worst doctor > > in the US can pull in several hundred thousand dollars a year, the > supposed > > altruistic reasons for persuing such a career are kind of hard to > swallow. > > If you are interested in actual data, here is the Merritt Hawkins > survey for 2008 on primary care physician salaries: > http://www.merritthawkins.com/pdf/2008-mha-survey-primary-care.pdf > > Merritt Hawkins is pretty reputable in this field. The survey found > that roughly 25% made 200K or more per year and only 8.9% made 300K or > more in 2007. On the other end of the spectrum, 19% made less than > 100K. Either this means that the worst doctors can't make several > hundred thousand a year or else it means that there are a whole lot of > altruistic physicians. Which is it? That survey only covered 'Primary Care Physicinas' which represent (mostly) Family Practice, General Medicine and Pediatrics and only about 10,000 physicians (and, if I am reading this correctly, only about half of those surveys mailed were returned). There are probably more physicians NOT in those specialties in the greater New York area alone, so I am not really sure that is fully representative sampling. It does not represent doctors who specialize in other areas such as cardiology, pulmonology, surgery, obstetrics, etc. Just taking a peak in my phone book here family practice, pediatrics and internal medicine are a small slice of all the doctors listed. So while this study may be a good indication of salaries for 'primary care physicians', you can't really use it to show 'physician' salaries. No where does the survey relate quality of care with salary. Just because a doctor is not pulling a high salary does not mean they area a bad practitioner and vice versa. I would also contend that geographic area plays a huge part in salaries. I would expect doctors in big cities (New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, etc) to make more money simply due to cost of living.$100.000 a year in for a doctor in New York is nothing, $100,0000 a year for a doctor in other parts of the country could make him the ricjest man in town. Its all kind of relative. Anyway, my point, initially, was, if someone wants to become a doctor and they claim money is not a motivating factor in doing so, I would bet they are lying. If money did not matter, there are other avenues they can pursue and have as much (or more in most cases - in my opinion) effect on patient care in other careers in the medical field. > > > If you'd care to see more of their research, they list a number of > interesting studies on their website: > http://www.merritthawkins.com/compensation-surveys.aspx > > > I never made a claim that physician's were against a single payer system > - > > not sure where you got that from. > > Sorry, I may have unfairly lumped you in with Gruss and Robert there. > Though if their assertion that a single payer system would cause MD > salaries to fall precipitously were correct and your assertion that > said MDs are primarily motivated by money is correct then it would > logically seem to follow that MDs would be against it. Of course MDs want a single payer system, with the US gov't being that single payer. Who else would not want Uncle Sam to be cutting them checks all the time? But if Medicare reimburesment reates are any indication of how a single payer system might work in reality, a lot of those doctors might be in for a big surprise. > > > Judah > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Adobe® ColdFusion® 8 software 8 is the most important and dramatic release to date Get the Free Trial http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;207172674;29440083;f Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:296660 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.5
