Could Universal Healthcare in the US Disincentivize Health Professionals?

Political opinions aside, I think that most can agree that the health care system in the United States is very inefficient and costly compared to other health systems globally and needs major reform. I personally like the idea of a single payer health insurance in principal, but I also think that a system like this in America could have major unintended consequences. As it stands today, and for much of history, the United States has paid for the development of most medical devices and drugs. As we have seen in the first lectures, we pay a premium for this and by far spend the most on healthcare.  We also have some of the best and most diverse medical specialists in the world. Without the large amount of private sector spending in America, would healthcare even have developed into what it is today? It could be argued that many of the other countries with universal healthcare are reaping the benefits of the US healthcare system, but at a significantly lower cost. Taking the US to a single payer health system removes a large portion of the private sector spending and could significantly halt progress that our health system has created in medical development.

People commonly compare the United States healthcare system to the UK or Canada, whom have universal health care programs. After going to school for 8 years and probably spending another couple in residency I wanted to see how universal healthcare has affected wages in other somewhat comparable countries. I quickly found that wages are dismal in comparison with the US and healthcare workers are severely underpaid. For example, UK doctors make on average around $125,000/year compared to US doctors at ~$225,000 in the primary care setting. Even worse, wages have dropped by over 20% in the last decade and their tax rate exceeds 45% (for reference, you must make > $500,000/year in the US to be even close to this). Other high rated countries with universal health care have very comparable data. Naturally, I wondered why people would even want to work there for this kind of pay. Turns out they do not. The number of doctors planning to leave is at an all-time high in the UK with 39% of practitioners saying they planned to quit within 5 years in a recent survey. And if you want to be a pharmacist in the UK, you are practically volunteering if you ever intend to pay off your school loans. The average salary is equivalent to $60,000 in the US, so your take home after those tax rates is less than 40K per year. Going into the details of why the salaries in the UK plummeted is complicated and a political, but it is reasonable to fear that similar consequences would be seen in the US if that system was implemented.

                My main thoughts after reading all of this were that we must find a better way to do things. The United States is unique compared to all other countries and there are a ton of very smart people (probably not politicians) that could propose a real working solution. Using models like the UK for our healthcare system could push the US in the same direction, which would really hurt our careers and compensation for the hard work we have put in. Although money is not everything, it does provide an incentive to progress and excel and has always been a driving factor of success in America. As we all know, people come from all around the world to practice in America and is why we have the world class specialists, pharmacists, technology and other health professionals in this country today.