Hacker News Reader

Comment by wrp | Hacker News Reader

What is a nutshell explanation of how healthcare got to the overall shortage state? (For the USA, but curious about other countries.) In the past 20 years, costs have shot up, doctors are seeing many more patients, and quality of care seems to have generally declined. Where have the resources gone? In the 1990s my GP had time to shoot the breeze for 20 minutes or more. Now I get a 5-minute diagnosis on the run, after scheduling months in advance.

View on HN

It seems doctors want to intentionally keep their supply low so their pay remains high.

Physicians don’t control the supply of physicians. The federal govt funds residency slots so they indirectly controls the supply.

>Where have the resources gone? In the 1990s my GP had time to shoot the breeze for 20 minutes or more. Now I get a 5-minute diagnosis on the run, after scheduling months in advance.

See the population pyramid getting older and the general decline of healthiness / increase in proportion of people with health problems.

Grossly insufficient pay for the work concerned. This applies to everywhere, US and otherwise.

Unless you are a saint given existence upon this mortal plane instead of the high heavens, there are simply no objectively good reasons for ordinary men to pursue a career in medical.

I get how low wages could cause personnel shortages, but how does the tremendously rising cost of medical come out of this? I would expect the causation to be rising costs => stalled wages => personnel shortages.

Nursing, I agree. But as a doc in the USA? It's THE highest status you can achieve on title alone, and comes with a paycheck in the top 1-5% guaranteed for almost 100% of entrants.

Shareholders.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com