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A comment on Why doctors in America earn so much. Parent comment

Re:Why doctors in America earn so much by mytailorisrich on Wednesday November 01, 2023 @02:42PM (#38102920)
Maybe so but the point is that in Europe if the number of doctors per capita dropped salaries would not go up, that would require a political decision. But since admissions are already ultra competitive there would be no need to attract even more candidates, rather they would try to lower the bar or 'import' more foreign doctors where possible. So that's why salaries in Europe are lower than in the US.

Conversely, I am not convinced that more doctors in the US would lead to a big drop in earnings assuming the market there is 'freer' than in Europe. It's a rich country and healthcare is very valuable with high barriers to entry in any case.

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Re:Why doctors in America earn so much by ajmurmann on Thursday November 02, 2023 @01:34AM (#38109375)
Where do doctors in Europe end up in terms of salary compared to other professions in Europe? Are they in the same percentile as US doctors, but just everyone in Europe earns less or do European doctors also earn less than some other professions that earn less in the US than US doctors?
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Re:Why doctors in America earn so much by Calavar on Thursday November 02, 2023 @02:45AM (#38109795)
> Are they in the same percentile as US doctors, but just everyone in Europe earns less

Europe is a big target, and there is quite a bit of variability country-to-country, but in general I would say yes. For example, in France the median physician salary is €120k/year and the median software engineer salary is €55k/year. So the median physician makes 2.1x the median developer.

In the US you have a median of $110k for SWE and a median of $255k for physicians (NOT 350k, as I've addressed on HN previously - see the US CES data [1]). So about 2.3x.

[1] https://www2.census.gov/ces/wp/2020/CES-WP-20-23.pdf

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Re:Why doctors in America earn so much by mytailorisrich on Thursday November 02, 2023 @04:15AM (#38110397)
Well, if doctors' salaries in the US are in line with general salaries compred to Europe then the whole article is moot. And that might be the case, indeed.
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