I would be interested to know the cost of getting the equivalent medical education in NZ is…
An even more fair point would be that the brainy ones leaving the state are making the states they move to more brainy, and liberal too BTW. 
In every US locale I have been to there is competition between medical professionals for patients. Patients who are not on Medicrap or Moochercaid have plenty of choices in providers. They can shop for the cheapest if they want.
Medical education takes much too long in the US. Consider a Bachelor’s degree, 4 years of medical school, 3 years of residency, and many have 3 years or more for a fellowship. A grad might be 32 years before one is ready to practice. Ancillary professions have all extended their education: after high shcool- pharmacy 7 years, physical therapy 7 years. All these years of delaying good income means income must be higher when it finally comes.
Many European countries have to import MDs from the 3rd world because the low income does not attract enough students in the home country. This is especially true in the UK. Before you tell me how many foreign docs we have in the US, let me point out that most of these (my son-in-law included) WANT to come to the US and pass some very difficult tests just to do their residency again here.
As stated by others, life expectancy and infant mortality are not good incicators of the quality of health care. Cure rates for specific diseases are.
I could give you so many ways how out government makes medical (and dental) practice more expensive, but nobody would be interested in hearing them. Try a drug license renewal fee of several hundred dollars. Try mandatory translation in up to 15 languages at the practice expense. Try mandatory annual courses for doc and staff of OSHA and HIPPA. Try treatment reviews and refund demands by states for Moochercaid treatment. Try ADA requirements that make square footage of medical practices enormous compared to other countries I have visited. Take mandatory annual courses in opioids which tell us the same thing we learned in basic pharmacology course. Federal monkey business increases medical costs in so many ways.
In no sphere of life does government involvement increase efficiency or treatment outcome. Haven’t been to New Zealand recently, but how would you feel about your child’s teeth being filled by a dental nurse who cannot give local anesthesia? Did you know private medical insurance is very popular in Australia and the UK due to dissatisfaction with government medical care? Wonder why that is?
Not to worry, between Medicrap and Moochercaid government health care is approaching 50% of care. And Medicrap is virtually the only option for seniors. It is getting harder to find care on Medicrap, and has been relatively hard on Moochercaid for quite a while, outside of hospital ERs. Don’t worry. you will get what you desire, then you will kick yourself in the butt for wanting it.
The future for a lot of Americans is paying out-of-pocket for care in the 3rd world.
Being smart and liberal are mutually exclusive.
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Isn’t that’s true in most for-profit endeavors? That’s usually why people show up for work. Health care professionals have a leg up on their non-essential commercial competition, a lot of what they are selling is purchased not by choice, but by outright life-threatening necessity.
In 2022, the average income for someone with a 4-year collage degree was $50K to $60K. The average income for a person with a medical degree was $229K. That’s over four times the salary for three additional years of education. I’d say that’s a pretty good ROI. 
The fact remains that the data show a mortality deficit for the very patients who are charged more for life-saving medical care and don’t live as long as those receiving cheaper medical care. It appears that we in the US are paying way too much for inferior results.
The future of Americans is to make more money so they can afford their doctor bills. They are at a disadvantage to do so because what they deliver to their customers is not life-dependant their custumers are not forced to buy from them.
You are comparing all degrees vs a specialty ? The average IT career pays $100k per year according to BLS. The cost of medical school is around $200k based on some quick searches. I don’t have a problem with it…
Im guessing in other countries the medical degree is subsidized ?
Thank you for displaying your ignorance about health care education costs and the length of education.
Where is there a medical school of only three years? All I know of take 4 to get the MD degree. You must be thinking of law school or chiropractic.
By the way, medical and dental school admission is so competitive that some students must get a master’s degree before they are admitted. I had an assistant who went that route.
You think the cost of doctoral training is the same as undergrad??? Even in the seventies when I attended the College of Georgia, tuition for medical and dental schools was pegged at twice the rate for University of Georgia. Now the multiple has increased. Then there were the instrument purchases on top of tuition. And our textbooks cost way more than undergraduate also.
So many MDs and DMDs graduate with debt of $350,000. Some have debt up to $700,000 from private schools, when books and living expenses are added in. What kind of salary do you think is necessary to pay off that debt?
What can an MD do with just that degree and nothing else? Not much. Go into the Navy and be a deployed doc with the Marines for about $100K a year. Of course, a friend lost his life in Beirut doing just that.
The shortest medical residency is about three years. Specialties like cardiology require three years of fellowship after the three year internal medicine residency. So someone might be 31 or even 35 years old before they even finish a residency.
Of course, medical residencies pay SOMETHING, unlike dental residencies that charge tuition. Once MDs get into their residency, they might earn $40,000 to $60,000 a year, working much more than 40 hours a week on shifts.
By the time MDs get through all that education, their high school classmates who went into IT or air traffic control or even plumbing can easily total more than 1 million in earnings.
Can you cite any evidence that US cure rates for diseases lag cure rates in countries with socialized medicine? If not, shut up with your claims.
At least you are not foolish to deny government mandates on health care practices increase the cost of health care.
You gotta spend more time reading Henrius!
From US News and World Report:
“Medical school typically lasts four years, but three-year accelerated programs have been emerging. Once someone receives either an M.D. or D.O. degree, they go on to the next phase of their medical training, typically a residency in their desired specialty, such as surgery or radiology.”
And you are making dentists look bad by calling your patients “crap” and “mootchers.”
ie:
It makes it look like you only want the richest and most elite patients sitting in your chair.
Two of my doc friends went to foreign medical schools and two dentist friends served military duty that resulted in reduced schooling costs.
And, the stats show that almost a third, (29%) graduate with no debt at all.
" * While 73 percent of medical school graduates from public institutions have debt at graduation, just 68 percent of medical students from private schools have debt. In total, 71 percent of all medical students have education-related debt after graduation."
I guess it depends on how you define “specialty” in a vocation. Many employed “specialists” have training and education in fields not specifically for the job they are doing. There are many specialty niche jobs in technology and IT. And we’ll likely continue to see an exponential increase in those positions in the near future. AI and Quantum computer technologists are just two examples of specialties still being parsed and re-defined.
So in the realm of specialties in general, do you consider $250K-$300K extravagant for an education spanning a minimum of 11 years after high school graduation, and costing a lot of tuition?
Do you think there would be many takers if the outcome was $100K a year, a fifth of what a seasoned airline captain makes?
Gotta love posters who are big on references but short on the overall picture.
You got any idea how hard military scholarships to med and dent schools are to obtain. It ain’t like the old days. The armed services have contracted out a lot of its medical and dental billets to private contractors. Used to be one year in service for every year in scholarship. Think the service year obligation has increased since then.
Go to foreign medical schools and the instruction is usually in a foreign language. Think it would be easy for an English speaking American to understand doctoral lectures in Spanish?
Then there is a special test you have to pass in the US. Then you have to take the US National Boards part I and II, which the foreign medical school did not prep you for. Then you have to get a US residency program to accept you as a foreign grad. Most foreign grads did their residency in the foreign country. Then they have to do them over here in the US. That is what my son-in-law is doing now.
That being said, most Americans who go this route are losers who could not make admission in a US medical school.
Like it or not, most health providers want to provide competent care. There is this little thing called practice overhead. For me it eats up 75% of all the dollars that come in. So if Georgia Moochercaid pays me $33 for something I charge $100 for, I lose money. I need $75 just to break even.
If I took home no income at all, my fees could only be 25% less. And patients would still complain that the cost of care is way too high.
The only way to make money on Moochercaid is to spend almost no time with patients, upcode procedures, and flat out bill for things you did not actually do. That will land you in jail if caught. Thus you see the reason few docs mess with it.
Sounds like your operation is a tad below average. The average dentist in the US makes a 30-40 profit margin. Maybe you should look into doing more implants and whitening in your practice.
Ya mean losers go to Imperial College London Medical School? 
Wow… and you’d think his father, an MD, would have known better to have sent him there!
California politicians have ruined a beautiful state. Go to the city and get harrassed by homeless people, drug users, immigrants. Go to the country and have a cartel down the street growing massive amounts of marijuana. All this to pay the HIGHEST TAXES IN THE WORLD. YOU VOTED THESE FOOLS IN CALIFORNIA…
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Yeah, I forgot you are the expert in everything by virtue of your Google searches. Staff wages have climbed like a rocket since COVID and our fees cannot keep pace. One the West coast hygienists are getting $70 per hour. I am hiring a receptionist now and they want $30 an hour.
Long ago 50% overhead was possible with extreme frugality. Don’t know anyone personally who can run 60% anymore. Perhaps in rural ares. Don’t care what your Google searches say.
Wouldn’t have sent him there if he could have gotten in a US medical school.
Incidentally, the Imperial College is the stupid institution where Neil Ferguson predicted 30% Covid mortality rate. Government leaders around the world listened to that moron and enacted the lockdowns. Thus, Imperial College in London caused the greatest worldwide governmental mistake in global history. Thank goodness Sweden did not listen to these idiots.
I think your memory might be a tad off on your claim that Ferguson predicted a 30% Covid mortality rate. Below is an estimate published by Ferguson and thirty other experts. For the total population the prediction, as shown below was less than 2%.
If they had, fewer people would have died of Covid. Here’s a study of the results of actions taken by Sweden and their neighbor Finland. Guess who lost?.. here’s a hint: " Conclusions: All-cause mortality in 2020 decreased in Norway and increased in Sweden compared with previous years."