<p>“Many of the immigrant resident doctors are by no means inferior to US grads. Many of them emigrate to the US after years of practice in other countries and bring a wealth of experience to hospitals.”</p>
<p>I am not disputing the quality of imported doctors. Most are very well trained. My point was they depress wages for US graduates. Your argued that they didn’t depress wages because they were paid the same as US residents. That is akin to saying NAFTA hasn’t depressed the price of corn in Mexico because Mexican corn and US corn both sell at the same market price.</p>
<p>I am almost certain that the renowned economists you studied under didn’t mean for you to come away with the idea that when supply goes up price is unaffected. Even Joh n Kenneth galbraith knew better than that. He just thought the government could solve economic problems better than producers and consumers.</p>
<p>A government can choose to invest in doctors or it can choose to invest in clean water and sewerage treatment facility. India would probably need fewer doctors if it altered its priorities just a bit. They prefer high social status jobs to mosquito control and so have lots of doctors and lots of malaria.</p>
<p>As for the wonders of French medicine 15,000 elderly people died during the heat wave in August 2003 when the doctors were all on vacation along with the government. Different folkd have different priorities. Ours are not necessarily the best, but when a heat wave struck Chicago in 1993 and hundreds of elderly died it was a national disgrace. That dispite the fact that the local authorities did way more than the French to try to ameliorate the situation.</p>
<p>mini is correct that a lot of people die for lack of medical insurance but in Britain and France just as many die for want of care because while the price is right the care itself is rationed. The proponents of socialized medicine often point out that American life expectency is lower than anywhere in western Europe or Canada. The main cause of the is a relatively high infant mortality rate frequently the result of drug or alcohol addled parents. That infant mortality rate is a disgrace and should be addressed.</p>
<p>There is however a lot more to a medical system than just crude life-ecpectency. A few stats you won’t here spouted are the 5 year survival rate for prostate cancer. It is 81% here, 61% in France, and 44% in Britain. The survival rates for leukemia and many other cancers are much better here because care is better and more importantly faster. </p>
<p>There are things wrong with the American healthcare system to be sure. One big one is that madical insurance to tied to your job and not easily transportable. Ironically that came about as a result of price and wage fixing during WWII when employers couldn’t give wage increases but could increase benefits and so added health insurance to attract labor.</p>
<p>This is much better than it was. A person can keep their insurance up to 18 months when changing jobs–plenty long enough for the new employer’s health insurance to kick in. And the new job’s insurance can’t refuse to cover a pre-existing condition if the job-changer was with the previous insurance long enough. I’m not explaining this well, but the clock no longer restarts on pre-existing conditions every time a person changes jobs. This has been really good for people I know who are cancer survivors or have children with disabilities.</p>
<p>Hahahahaha The Washington Post magazine had a story about this a couple months ago, so when I read your thread title, in my head I said “in Cuba…dun dun dun”. </p>
<p>Anyway, it was an interesting story. They were in pretty humble surroundings. Not much food, limits on electricity IIRC.</p>
<p>conyat, you are correct about the ability to keep health insurance for 18 months when changing jobs, but the price is not the same as when you were employed. Whatever portion of the benefit your employer paid (and typically it’s a large portion, half or more in many cases) is assumed by the employee, thus making the insurance considerably more (often prohibitively more) expensive.</p>
<p>I am involved in residency training, and can comment on some of the assertions here.
American allopathic medical students always have the best shot at residencies. Many residencies associated with medical schools will only take doctors who are the product of US schools or have trained elsewhere in the US for at least one year. The exception here would be the osteopathic students. They can take allopathic residencies and have an advantage in some of the subspecialties because of special osteopathic residencies that allopaths can’t get into.
The AAMC has issued a request that all US medical schools increase their enrolement by roughly 15%.
The number of residencies is capitated by government. If a state wants to increase the number of physicians they should seek an increase in the number of funded residency slots in their state rather than the number of students. People generally practice close to where they trained.
The debt is large for medical graduates but the amount varies based upon life style. The unmarried helicopter skier can amass more debt than the married frugal student with a family.</p>
<p>"Your argued that they didn’t depress wages because they were paid the same as US residents. That is akin to saying NAFTA hasn’t depressed the price of corn in Mexico because Mexican corn and US corn both sell at the same market price.</p>
<p>I am almost certain that the renowned economists you studied under didn’t mean for you to come away with the idea that when supply goes up price is unaffected. Even Joh n Kenneth galbraith knew better than that. He just thought the government could solve economic problems better than producers and consumers."</p>
<p>Your sarcasm aside, I fail to see what point you are making in regards to foreign trained vs US trained doctors in regard to wages. What distinction are you making? If you think they are analogous to illegals standing at Home Depot waiting for jobs, and being paid less, then you are mistaken.</p>
<p>“A government can choose to invest in doctors or it can choose to invest in clean water and sewerage treatment facility. India would probably need fewer doctors if it altered its priorities just a bit. They prefer high social status jobs to mosquito control and so have lots of doctors and lots of malaria.”</p>
<p>Do you actually know the ratios of doctors to patients in India? I thought they have shortage in the rural areas. The doctors from India who can make it here generally do this not because of a lack of patients, but due to higher wages here, and better working conditions and opportunities.</p>
<p>Yes, but it is running headlong into Medicare funding for residency slots. I worry that richer states will state fund more residency slots, while poorer states who are in greater need of physicians will continue to go lacking because they also cannot afford to fund slots above Medicare levels.</p>
<p>Recently Bush also was trying to cut Medicaid funding for residency training, which will hit hospitals hard, esp in cities and rural areas. I don’t know if he succeeded in doing this. It was about $70 million in cuts.</p>
<p>As one of the Cuban schooled doctors stated in a radio interview, the US is a first world country with third world areas; this is where the majority of these doctors intend to practice, at least that is my understanding.</p>