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by derbOac
1109 days ago
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> They've had a career of treating patients. I think they've satisfied the moral imperative already. No offense (really), but speaking from professional experience, I think this is naive and contributing to a lot of reasons why healthcare costs have started to spiral out of control. There are moral doctors, and immoral ones, and everything in between. I'm not really sure why healthcare provision as an economic transaction is necessarily more moral than any other economic transaction that brings net benefit to the receiver of the service. If there was such a cost to the physician overall, in terms of altruistic cost-benefit balances, they'd have trouble finding people wanting to go to medical school. I think the labor markets (in terms of medical school supply and demand) speak to the nature of that balance. I don't want to demonize doctors (my family and myself fall into these categories) but I think it's dangerous to idolize them at the same time. |
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A family doctor in my hometown used to be able to afford a house in the nicest neighbourhood on their earnings. They didn't have to talk about money, and when they sold their practice they were happy to make sure it went into the right hands and sold it for a reasonable amount of money.
These days a family doctor can get a 2 bed condo or a townhouse near their practice, or they can have a long commute with something larger. After paying for office expenses, childcare (which also suffers from Baumol's cost disease) and their more expensive education, there's far less for retirement. You really have to maximize what you get out of your practice when you sell it.
I know there's a long history of it being "a calling" and expecting sacrifice. That's still expected, and yet the same rewards aren't there as in the past. Nobody in the past looked like a greedy asshole because they didn't have to ask for more money or really worry about anything. It was set up your practice and live your life on autopilot.