It's depressing. We all know what's happening, but we're helpless.

-10. 45 million people without health care is a disgrace in the richest nation in the world.

I am with you stomin! +

It takes 8-12 years to finish undergrad and med school, and then another 4 to 8 years to get through residency. People are willing to do it because they get paid enough in the end to justify it. If we lower pay, we will face a shortage of doctors.

Lower the wage of doctors!? - Specialists make many times more than family doctors. - In order for a family doctor to be profitable in our system, he or she needs to see more than two patients an hour. - Studies show doctors are being too cursory and do not communicate well with patients. Spending more time with patients resolves this issue. - Doctors go through SO many years of school and don't generally enter the workforce until at least 27 years old. Lowered physician income would equate to more mistakes. In my opinion, we should lower specialists' incomes and increase family doctor's incomes or at least allow them to have more time with each patient. I am fortunate to have excellent healthcare. However, 47 million Americans (16%) did not have health insurance in 2005. That's unacceptable.

I think that scrapping the whole system and starting all over will completely destroy the health system and I don't think that's a wise thing to do at all. Good changes are small and slowly get better. Starting from scrap won't help. Disagree with me if you wish, but that's what I believe. :) When we grow up, we grow slowly. We get taller over time, not in just one night. Imagine we just rose from a child to an adult overnight. That would cause more problems, wouldn't it?

Doctors get paid for what they do. They earn their money. Their pay is fine. Who would go through all that school and 250k of student loans if you didn't earn it back. I'm all for raising nursing pay, depending on what department. ER, ICU, and OR nurses, yes. Floor nurses have their aids who do everything but push meds, so a starting pay of 50k is fine for them. Doctors office nurses who are 8-5 m-f, 50k starting is fine for them too. That is starting, I said, not max out. That is what they start at, too, its not a suggestion.

People trust doctors. There are many nurses that could do just as good of a job as a doctor, but they do not have the proper credentials. There is lots of waste that diverts funds from actual medical practice, but there is not enough space in this form to convey enough background information without sounding like a charlatan. The best health care is preventative medicine. Too bad more people can't have safe and low-stress jobs, healthy diets and exercise several times a week. This would put much less strain on the medical system.

How would lowering doctors' salaries and raising nurses' improve the healthcare system? The system is most broken when it comes to primary care. Last year, only 2% of all med school graduates nationwide went into a primary care field (orimary care internal medicine, pediatrics, family medicine). One of the reasons for this is low reimbursement and high educational debt. Let's say you lower the doctors' salaries by 25% and raise nurses' by 25%. Even fewer of the doctors would go into primary care. But would more nurses do it? I think the answer is no. Over the last few years, we've seen an increase in the number and influence of nurse practitioners (and physicians assistants). However, just like the med students, nursing students aren't choosing to go into primary care once their schooling is done. They're going into procedural subspecialties like gastroenterology. Even if you increase a nurse practitioner's salary by 25%, it still probably wouldn't be enough to entice them, particularly in rural areas. So, all we'd be doing by decreasing doctors' salaries and increasing nurses' salaries would be to cause even fewer people to go into primary care, just at the time that the baby boomers are aging and needing more care. It would be the healthcare perfect storm.