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Comment by overlyLogical | Hacker News Reader

But they still make 10x more than the average American.

Not true. A primary care physician at Kaiser makes a bit over $200K if they work full time AFAIK. Average American makes about $50K. Considering the 4 years of med school and 3 years of residency they are not overpaid. Specialists are the people making $500K+

$50K is household income.

Average income is more like $32K.

Median full-time individual income is $48,000. (Weekly earnings of $923 from [1] times 52.). The mean is even higher.

[1] https://www.bls.gov/news.release/wkyeng.t01.htm

Median personal income in 2018 was estimated to be $33.7k (https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N). And the BLS gives mean wages for family and general practitioner at $211,780 (https://www.bls.gov/ooh/healthcare/physicians-and-surgeons.h...).

Also, while I don't know about the competitiveness of jobs in certain locations, rural states can have some of the higher mean wages for fam and gen practioners (https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes291062.htm).

Not that much. They have half a million dollar student loans; they pay thousands of dollars a month in malpractice. And doctoes are very overworked.

Its not that great of a profession.

Then where is all this money going? Why does my health insurance cost $10,000/person of coverage, on top of deductibles and co-pays?

Administration, primarily.

https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/08061...

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/22/the-real-reason-medical-care...

https://www.cms.gov/files/document/highlights.pdf

33% to hospitals

20% to physicians and clinical services

9% to retail prescription drugs

5% for other health, residential and personal care services

5% for nursing care facilities and continuing care retirement communities