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Comment by Broken_Hippo | Hacker News Reader

I'm with you until I remember how expensive medical school plus internship is in the US. If doctors cannot pay back their student loans, it doesn't matter. The majority of folks in medical school have family that can support them now - not fixing education will make this even worse.

Don't get me wrong. I support state-sponsored health care, especially after moving from the US to Norway over a decade ago. Just the peace of mind not having to worry so much about financial ruin because of health issues relieves so much stress - even stress related to just keeping yourself healthy is less (If I get hurt while jogging, it isn't a big issue, for example) But fixing the US system is bigger than just payments or insurance for all. Gotta fix things like education costs, the burden of unpaid internships, and things like that, too. I wish it weren't such a complicated problem and I wish there were the political desire to do such a thing.

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> I'm with you until I remember how expensive medical school plus internship is in the US.

in that case you should double check your math, because it doesn't work out like that

> If doctors cannot pay back their student loans, it doesn't matter.

this is plain dishonesty. there have been actual discussions on how a significant number of physicians in the USA retire or semi-retire in their 50s!

Medical professionals in the US make multiples of what the same professionals make in Europe.

And the best of the best of medical students the world over compete to enter the US market. Being US board certified garners the highest pay even outside the US (eg GCC).

It’s kind of like our industry - the higher comp is a big reason behind how the US attracts talent from all over the world.

Just wanna point out that this sort of statement only really applies to the anglosphere. As in "medical students the world over can generally only speak english and their native language, so they can either apply for studies in their home country or an english speaking country, and some try to go to the US".

Not every country is in contention, as even if, for example, Hungary has the best medicine program, very few people are gonna learn Hungarian just to attend the university. The same argument applies for every country which requires a non-english language for admission.

This is not the case in Europe. You would not gain anything by being a doctor from the US vs the local ones. You may even be in a worse position due to many differences between the US and the host country.

This gets said a lot and it kind of irks me. (I am a physician.)

US software devs also make 2x what their European colleagues do, but that never gets called out as bloat. Plus US software devs make that 2x pay without taking our additional loans for medical school at the rate of $75k per year or doing years of low pay residency where their salary doesn’t give them the means to pay off those loans.

Don't forget the insurance, plus the hospital has costs that must be paid for too. A surgery with _just_ the surgeon and no support staff isn't one I'd want to be in.

(Not in the medical field at all)

> US software devs also make 2x what their European colleagues do, but that never gets called out as bloat.

Of course it does. And it gets acted on. Every major corporation in America has explored or implemented moving to European or other foreign developers to save costs.

Developers also don’t have the advantage of a trade group that prevents this practice, requires particular education or limits the number of people allowed to get that education.

Right - but the big difference is that the received wisdom for healthcare is that the higher cost in the US is an unfathomable mystery and/or due to "waste". If you said "writing software is more expensive in the US because software engineers there have higher salaries" everyone one would nod their head in agreement.

But in Europe the state also tends to cover their schooling to become a doctor.

For what benefit? Graduating medical school with an average of $250k of debt?

Unpaid time off and possible job loss if you have medical issues that require you to be off work? They still worry about health insurance and things like that. Poor work/life balance, no promise of using vacation time, especially weeks at a time? The worry of lawsuits? Little to no job security?

Money isn't everything. Money can't really buy the quality of life that legal protections can - it is harder to lose legal protections.

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