The average annual income of a French physician is estimated at $55,000. Some are advocating we follow the French model of health care.
Cutting physician salaries as part of some radical government-dominated health reform would likely lead to this kind of thinking:
Boy, can you imagine the shortage of doctors (and nurses) in the US if we capped salaries at $55K? What would they start out, $35K?
And at what point do aspiring youth decide “Eh, it’s not worth all the effort. I can just go to work at Starbucks part time and get free government health care.”
Update:
Mark Thoma comments.
