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Health care has become a vicious cycle involving everyone:

Patients who want everything for free and use health care too much, which in turn makes health care too expensive for those really needing it.

Physicians, saddled with high student loan debt, who think they should by millionaires before they are 28.

Health insurance companies determined to make huge profits.

Hospitals/Health Systems bloated with expensive and inefficient bureaucracies.

Medical schools charging students outrageous tuition.

Politicians promising benefits to the voters while under the influence of lobbyists at every turn.

Lawyers/patients pushing incredible and frivolous medical liability lawsuits.

Medical liability insurance companies determined to make profits.

Parts of the cycle have begun to crack; many medical liability companies are hurting. Physicians can't afford the liability insurance, so they won't see some patients. As usual, the problems start with lawyers, lazy consumers and bureaucracies. Those will be the last to give in to solve the problem.

Still, with all the mess, we have the best system in the world.

we have the best system in the world

This is what the Soviets used to say, I kid you not.

And don't get me wrong, I am not a communist sympathizer. Far from it, I am a hardcore Reaganite for life.

But whether we have the best is debatable. Many will say that other societies are far more advanced in healthcare. One example that is touted is Iceland.

Or put it this way, if you are rich you will have access to the best. And it was the same under the Soviet system, if you were affiliated with a high ranking party member, you had the best.

Physicians, saddled with high student loan debt, who think they should by millionaires before they are 28.

I have never met any doctors like this. The main reason is that unless they are Doogie Howser, they know they will still be in residency at the age of 28, working 90 hour weeks for wages that would make a bus driver sneer.

It requires 4 years of college, 4 years of medical school, 3 to 6 years of residency, and often one or two additional years of fellowship. Then you have the expenses of establishing or buying into a practice. And most docs nowadays have more than a hundred grand in student loans to pay off, and sometimes two or three times that much.

Most physicians don't make any real significant take-home money until their mid-30's, and even then it can take a while to become established. If they didn't go into one of the high paying specialties like surgery or cardiology, they may never net more than $125,000 or $150,000 per year.

If you are in medicine for the money, you can probably do better by joining a unionized trade as an apprentice right out of high school. Work your way up to journeyman, master, and contractor. At age 35 or 40 you will be making as much money as your family-doctor friend AND have a fat pension already in the bank, while he may have a six-figure *negative* net worth.

-ccm