I am sure many of you are following Hilary’s proposal for Universal healthcare here in america… What are you thoughts and opinions on this topic?
Mostly, the biggest concern for many of us future-doctors is what does this mean for us? Obviously, there were will a cut in doctor’s salaries (esspecially primary care), but is it crippling to the point where we can’t even pay our medical school loans back? If thats the case, who really wants to be a doctor… Don’t get me wrong, I love going into medicine, but if I can’t even pay back my student loans, this is a financial suicide
Basically (and I have only been able to read up on this a little bit so far) she is proposing that there be coverage for everyone. The government isn’t going to be determining what I make, at least not directly.
Now, the government does set reimbursement rates for Medicare and Medicaid, and other insurance companies peg their reimbursement schedules to Medicare. In that respect, I am already affected by the government’s decisions regarding healthcare and I don’t see anything in her plan that would make this more or less of a concern for me.
Her proposal is not government-run health care. As best I can tell (and again, I have only just started reading up on it), this is an attempt to use existing programs and services to reach more people. That requires a lot more bureaucracy and I’ve not noticed that getting the federal government involved makes things more efficient.
But I would like to see people have the chance to have health insurance so I am going to be listening carefully to all these ideas.
Meanwhile I think it is silly to anticipate that doctors won’t make enough money to pay off their loans. In my specialty (family practice), residents get paid $40-50K per year now, and then get paid more than double that (generally, low six figures) as starting salaries right out of residency. My loan payment for $150K of loans is $640 per month. I recognize that some people may be facing worse situations but I give these numbers as an example. It’s do-able.
Mary
she’s planning to pay for it by increasing taxes on people making over $250,000/year. If this thing passes, look for lots of people in the $249,000 category in 2009, along with an uptick in charitable donations, trust funds, and other forms of tax shelter.
Basically it won’t affect most of us very much; we’ll keep on seeing patients. If Hillary thinks she’s going to reduce doctors’ salaries as part of this package she’s really dreaming…
I would rather see someone, anyone, talk about basic science. That’s what this country is good at and has been falling behind in lately. Upping the federal commitment to basic research without limiting fields like stem cells will draw more people into the sciences, increase research budgets at universities and medical schools, and probably lead to more medical cures not to mention a more profitable biotech sector. This is far and away a better use of federal money than another tax-and-spend welfare scheme that is probably destined for bankruptcy if not total failure. Just my 2 cents!