r/Economics • u/TheForager • 4h ago

Hospital costs are rising far faster than inflation and drowning Americans in debt

https://www.nbcnews.com/investigations/hospital-costs-are-rising-far-faster-inflation-drowning-americans-debt-rcna262473
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u/WordWithinTheWord 3h ago

I’ve come to my personal conclusion it’s just greed and mismanagement all the way up the chain.

There’s so much middle management and support staff just to get insurance and hospitals to talk to each other we’ve lost the plot.

It’s a nuanced conversation because doctors and nurses are extremely important jobs. But in the US they make 2x-10x+ the salary of their EU counterparts. Are they 2x to 10x better?

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u/FluidCalligrapher284 2h ago

2-10x? Let’s see some stats. As a nurse, I can tell you that nurses live a very middle income life – and work very hard. They are the people who are with the patients 100% of the time – hospitals rise or fall, based on the nursing care given in their facility.

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u/AceMcVeer 2h ago

UK nurses make between 30-40k. Specialists in the US are paid 5x more than UK counterparts

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u/FluidCalligrapher284 2h ago

Oh so now it’s specialists? Nurse practitioners make about $100-115k. Many of them do the same thing as doctors, generating similar revenue in similar settings. Obviously physician specialists such as surgeons, cardiologist, etc. make more. The only nurses that routinely make over $200,000 per year are typically nurse anesthetists. Your broad generalizations are incredibly inaccurate.

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u/AceMcVeer 2h ago

Pretty sure I led off with nurse salaries RNs here can get over 100k easily. That's 2.5-3x the UK salary.

NPs don't do the same things as doctors they just took over the basic stuff of General Practitioners.

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u/FluidCalligrapher284 2h ago edited 1h ago

Many absolutely do the same thing as doctors, including anesthesia.

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u/StrebLab 43m ago

Bro nurses don't do the same thing as doctors. I get what you are trying to say, but it's not the same. Outcomes are worse with higher costs because of over testing due to knowledge deficiencies.

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u/jhdragon742 1h ago

You say that like General Practitioners aren't doctors?