[rvb]

I very much wanted to believe this, but the study you linked to lists "Percent of national health expenditures for physician and clinical services: 19.8% (2015)".

What do you think accounts for the discrepancy between 3.12% and 19.8%?

[js8]

These are total expenditures, not salaries. I think. So they probably include things like medical material or office rents.

[lloyd-christmas]

https://www.cms.gov/Research-Statistics-Data-and-Systems/Sta...

Hospital Care:

Covers all services provided by hospitals to patients. These include room and board, ancillary charges, services of resident physicians, inpatient pharmacy, hospital-based nursing home and home health care, and any other services billed by hospitals in the United States. The value of hospital services is measured by total net revenue, which equals gross patient revenues (charges) less contractual adjustments, bad debts, and charity care. It also includes government tax appropriations as well as non-patient and non-operating revenues. Hospitals fall into NAICS 622 – Hospitals.

Physician and Clinical Services:

Covers services provided in establishments operated by Doctors of Medicine (M.D.) and Doctors of Osteopathic Medicine (D.O.), outpatient care centers, plus the portion of medical laboratories services that are billed independently by the laboratories. This category also includes services rendered by a doctor of medicine (M.D.) or doctor of osteopathic medicine (D.O.) in hospitals, if the physician bills independently for those services. Clinical services provided in freestanding outpatient clinics operated by the U.S. Department of Veterans’ Affairs, the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, the U.S. Department of Defense, and the U.S. Indian Health Service are also included. The establishments included in Physician and Clinical Services are classified in NAICS 6211-Offices of Physicians, NAICS 6214-Outpatient Care Centers, and a portion of NAICS 6215-Medical and Diagnostic Laboratories.

So as a quick summary, physician pay isn't the same as physician and clinical services. Both categories includes salaries of doctors. The statistic people are looking for isn't readily available in the numbers they are quoting. 3.12 and 19.8 are unrelated numbers.

EDIT: You can calculate expenditure relatively easily. Some assumptions: The link lists median pay at 295k, but Bureau of Labor statistics actually has it at 208k, and google's auto-suggest puts it at 187k in 2015. I'm just going to run with 250k.

250k median salary^ * 950k active physicians / 3.2 trillion US healthcare costs = 7.4%. 100b is a commonly cited number, but I can't find the source. My calculations put compensation at around 237b. Here's a corroborating source as well:

https://www.jacksonhealthcare.com/media-room/news/md-salarie...

I think this is a more relevant read than the politico one, given that these conversations always degrade into "my country vs your country":

http://www.healthcarefinancenews.com/news/physician-compensa...

Disclaimer: My father is a doctor, my mother is a nurse. I get really annoyed when this crap comes up on HN. Tomorrow we'll have an article that leads to a discussion about how the engineers on this site are making 150k-200k and complaining about being underpaid, all while criticizing other careers that necessitate higher educational attainment and greater career risk.