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Comment by space_fountain | Hacker News Reader

Yes, but worth remembering this is more than just cutting out capitalist's profit. This would need to involve running the medical sector better + pushing wages for doctors and other medical professionals down, but yeah the fact that US federal government spends more than the UK on healthcare per capita while not actually delivering healthcare to everyone is crazy

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Yep, doctors in the US make anywhere from 2-5x that of doctors in the UK. Take a look at these salaries posted by the NHS [1]. Nurses make more too. It's very common for RNs in California to make upwards of $50/h even starting out, which works out to more than the specialized doctor pay in the NHS link.

Student loan debt isn't even a big factor in this because of the sheer size of the salary gap. $500k loan gets paid off fast when you make $300k+, and you get that salary for life whereas the loan only weighs you down for the first 5-10 years.

[1] https://www.healthcareers.nhs.uk/explore-roles/doctors/pay-d...

OTOH, doctors in the US often pay $50-$200k/year in malpractice insurance[1]. In the UK, indemnity comes from the NHS automatically.

https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/small-business/how-much-i...

Yes, for a surgeon. Scroll down to internal medicine, which is closer to who will be prescribing insulin, and note it's 8k to 50k. (No median or mean is given?)

I'm not at all shocked someone who cuts people open and removes or adds objects has a high liability insurance.

I have no source for this, but blaming medical system costs on liability insurance feels like a way of blaming the patients instead of the system. "If only greedy people were not trying to get rich quick off lawsuits."

Yes, doctors in the US can make good money, but imo, many deserve it - its is hard to become a doctor, and it should be - 4 years of undergrad, 4 years of medical school and then 2-3 years as a lowly paid resident making a pittance (compared to a doctor) - so that is 6-7 years of opportunity cost lost over someone that only had 4 years of school - i.e. years when you could have been working and making salary doing something else.

Compare that to a programmer, assume 4 years of undergrad, and then you get out making $100K easily - especially if you were a very smart student, probably much more (i.e. someone that was smart enough to be a doctor or a programmer), not even accounting for raises and inflation, 6-7 years at $100K and also assume 400K for med school loans and the programmer is already almost $1Million ahead of the doctor at year 7.

Over the long haul the doctor will likely do better, but it will take years to catch up once you factor in the huge costs a doctor has vs a programmer - I for one am glad only really smart people can become MDs.

Sure, the point isn't do they deserve the money, the point is to achieve European like prices for healthcare you need to do more than stick it to the venture capitalists or something

Can UK doctors own their practice or are they all employees of NHS?

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