> The end result is that for doctors whose residency and subsequent career begins by working at nonprofit hospitals, the government will end up forgiving the full amount of their medical school tuition, usually plus a little bit of interest. Med schools know this, and actively promote these programs as a way for students to justify going into unbelievable levels of debt.
So we get more doctors that work in hospitals that aren't motivated by profit and you make it sound like a bad thing.
We also get completely unrestrained tuition growth, which is really the core problem. And we forgive hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt to professionals earning 10x the median income.
My SO is a resident at a non-profit in an east coast city. I'm not "kidding myself".
I made no claim that non-profit hospitals aren't enormous businesses so I'm not sure what your link is proving. Though to me that link does actually make the point that we should have more non-profit hospitals, imo.
2 more points:
1) You are grossly over exaggerated the compensation of doctors after residency in non-profit hospitals. Of course they do make more than the median income but it is no where near 10x.
2) I think you should consider what the benefit of a) having non-profit hospitals and b) loan forgiveness programs for doctors at non-profit hospitals is.
"Hospital employment: Hospital employment can be a good option for orthopedic and spine surgeons who want steady hours, guaranteed income and relief from the administrative duties associated with running a private practice. Hospital employment also guarantees an immediate patient base, which can be difficult to build from the ground up in a private practice.
"One of the interesting thing hospitals have been doing for employed physicians is paying a wage to a new graduate that are substantially higher than what they would make in private practice for the first year or two," says Dr. Ott. "So they capture many of the new graduates. While they may be spending more on the professional services side, they recoup hospital charges when these surgeons bring patients to the facility for surgery or diagnostic testing."
For general orthopedic surgeons, the starting salary is $500,000 with a sign-on bonus at $35,000, according to the "2011 Orthopedic Recruiting Trends & Starting Salary Overview from Orthopedic Recruiting Group. Hip and joint on average receive $597,000 salary and $50,000 sign-on buns, while spine surgeons receive $452,000 salary and $40,000 sign-on bonus."
Right so you have a few options there. 1 being getting rid of the incentive to work for a non-profit or another being to increase the size and number of medical schools. I know which one I'd prefer.
My preferred solution is actually to force the original beneficiaries of the debt origination to carry a "lowest priority" fraction of it for the duration of the loan - somewhere from 5-20% should be sufficient. Once schools need to carry responsibility for the full repayment of the student loans, they'll have an incentive to minimize the size of the loans.
Firstly, the most profitable hospitals are nonprofit. Secondly, it would probably be cheaper to hire them at market rate as opposed to paying off their loans.
So we get more doctors that work in hospitals that aren't motivated by profit and you make it sound like a bad thing.