Politics debate continued from multiculturalism thread

[Jon Miller]

I tihnk that the peopel who have no predisposition towards medicine would best be out of there anyways.

JM

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten

Doctors are no more intelligent, on average, than people in any other highly-trained profession

And that contradicts my statement that doctors are "smart enough to succeed in a variety of other high-paying careers" how exactly?

Read the second sentence, son. They already get paid significantly more than most other people of their intelligence and training.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten
They won't become "worse doctors". They will, however, naturally respond to the lowered incentive to work by expending less effort on their work. It's common sense. Would you be as willing to put up with all the bull**** doctors do if you suddenly lost a fifth of your pay?

What bull****?

[KrazyHorse]

Similarly, some people like being/want to be a doctor so much that they wouldn't consider doing anything else even if their pay got slashed 20%. But there's plenty of people out there who have no predisposition towards medicine who may find the cost/benefit ratio unfavorable if salaries cut drastically cut...

Again, horse****.

Read the average salaries for, say, a doctor and a PhD engineer with equivalent experience. The difference is more than 20%.

[KrazyHorse]

And the fact that medical schools are constantly oversubscribed should tell you something, Drake. Think it through.

[Drake Tungsten]

They already get paid significantly more than most other people of their intelligence and training.

Which is why being a doctor is such a desirable profession. Cutting wages 20% is going to reduce this advantage substantially...

And the fact that medical schools are constantly oversubscribed should tell you something, Drake.

It doesn't tell me anything, as any high-quality job is going to have a surplus of people wanting to fill it. There will still be plenty of people wanting to become doctors even if wages get cut by 20%; I never argued otherwise. You would expect, however, that overall quality of students in medical schools would drop. Medicine simply won't be as attractive to the best-of-the-best if wages drop substantially...

[KrazyHorse]

a) I don't think that a significant (though not crippling) readjustment of doctors' wages would really affect peoples' urge to become doctors. The salaries are already so much higher that anybody simply looking for money and security from a job is still going to veer toward medicine

b) I'm not sure what you mean by "quality". The competition for medical schools is so intense that it verges on the ridiculous. I don't really think there's much of a difference between those who get in and those who don't. The demand is so high that you've reached the point of diminished returns. In fact, if we were to see a significant drop in the number of applicants to medical school I'd probably view it as a good thing. Too many students gear toward applying to medical school, and when they don't get in their education is often wasted.

The market for doctors is significantly distorted by insurance (as well as other, more intrinsic effects). Blindly saying that doctors should be paid as much as they are because if we don't pay them that much we'll get worse health care is ingenuous.

[Drake Tungsten]

The salaries are already so much higher that anybody simply looking for money and security from a job is still going to veer toward medicine

Some will still veer toward medicine, but you'll see an increase in those veering towards law, investment banking, etc.

In fact, if we were to see a significant drop in the number of applicants to medical school I'd probably view it as a good thing.

You probably won't see a significant drop in the number of applicants. I suspect you will eventually see fewer highly-skilled students choosing to go to med school, however.

Blindly saying that doctors should be paid as much as they are because if we don't pay them that much we'll get worse health care is ingenuous.

We pay doctors what we (and they) think they're worth. It's ridiculous to think that cutting that pay significantly won't have any effect on how much current doctors value their jobs or how future students will evaluate medicine as a career option.

[KrazyHorse]

No, in most cases the insurance pays them. And in most of those cases most of the cost of the insurance is eaten by your employer. So the consumer is 2 levels removed from haggling with the doctor.

Secondly, when somebody is sick they can hardly be expected to make a rational, informed decision as to cost. They'll pay whatever they're told to pay and will worry about it later.

Do you want more examples of why the market in health care is ****ed up?

[KrazyHorse]

The simple fact is that there are people in innumerable professions who are just as smart as doctors and who work just as hard as doctors for less money.

Until the salary for doctors (taking into account educational cost etc) levels out with that of other, similar professions you wouldn't see any real decline in the quality of doctors. Many of the reason doctors' salaries are so inflated relative to the salaries of similar professions are the same reasons that the health care system is ****ed up, and these inflated salaries are one of the major causes of the ridiculously high level of US health spending.

[Ned]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse

Most aren't going to change careers, although doctors are certainly smart enough to succeed in a variety of other high-paying careers

Doctors are no more intelligent, on average, than people in any other highly-trained profession, and are significantly less so than people in some. Yet they get paid more (yes, even in Canada) than people in those other professions. There is no paucity of applicants to medical school, Drake. Quite the opposite.

Huh?

Well, at least here in the US, it is very hard to get into Med School. I know, because my daughter had great grades from a top college, but still didn't make it 'till her second year. (She is about to begin her residency.)

This might demonstrate that there IS a difference between medicine in the US and the lands of socialism that is related to the quality of practicioners.

[Jon Miller]

Originally posted by Ned


Huh?

Well, at least here in the US, it is very hard to get into Med School. I know, because my daughter had great grades from a top college, but still didn't make it 'till her second year. (She is about to begin her residency.)

This might demonstrate that there IS a difference between medicine in the US and the lands of socialism that is related to the quality of practicioners.

Umm, Krazyhorse is a physicist. I can tell you that the average physicist is more intelligent than the average medical doctor.

JM

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Ned


Huh?

Well, at least here in the US, it is very hard to get into Med School. I know, because my daughter had great grades from a top college, but still didn't make it 'till her second year. (She is about to begin her residency.)

This might demonstrate that there IS a difference between medicine in the US and the lands of socialism that is related to the quality of practicioners.

Do you understand the English language?

[KrazyHorse]

Me: "It's very hard to get into medical school"
Ned: "No, it's very hard to get into medical school"

???

[Ned]

Yeah, but applicants to US schools are the best of students from the entire world.

I am not sure you mentioned who applies to Canadian med schools. It might make a difference if those graduates can practice in the US after they are qualified in Canada. But it could be that a very large number of very mediocre students apply to Canadian schools if the pay they receive afterwords is no more than, let's say, the average physics Phd.