Cost of healthcare and physician income

摘要

There is widespread concern about the high and rising cost of health care in the United States. There is much less concern regarding underpayment of physicians, which I think is a real problem, especially among doctors who receive the majority of their income from health insurance payments. Health care contributes only 10% to health, with other things such as obesity and smoking being much more important, and physician reimbursement accounts for a relatively small amount even of health care. Calculating health care costs eliminating physician payments would probably not make a big dent in the rising costs. According to the Medical Cost Reference Guide 2007 published by BlueCross BlueShield, physician and clinical services combined account for only 21% of all health care spending in 2004. Reimbursement cuts to doctors have not controlled rising health care costs, but they have resulted in marked loss of income and undervaluation of the contributions made by doctors to their patients.