re: #526 Obdicut

A lot of people in medicine are there because they honestly want to help out (while making money), but even there they get disillusioned very fast, both by the experience of med school, and the experience of the practice of medicine in real life.

One recent graduate, friend of my wife’s, who’s a straightforward primary care doctor, says that he basically has the option of making a modest income by doing primarily medicare, or making a highly variable income by engaging with private insurance, hiring someone to deal solely with making those claims, paying close attention to compensation schemes among the different plans, and doing at least some gaming of the system.

The reason why doctors still do medicare, despite all the fear-mongering, is because it’s a quite dependable source of income. People on private insurance aren’t nearly as dependable, and it takes a lot of resources on the doctors part to actually chase that money down.

But of course, single-payer would be a terribly inefficient government bureaucracy whargble.

There’s a mix. People who genuinely want to help the world but also people who really just wanted to be retired brain surgeons. I’m not really sure it has anything to do with single-payer or even Universal Healthcare. The exact same thing happens in Canada. Its highly variable depending on which province you’re in, what if any specialities you have, and what if any elective procedures you can perform.