(apologies to Notorious for using something cool for something so wonky)
The New York Times Economix blog has a post asking “How Much Do Doctors in Other Countries Make?” The author uses several showy graphs and different comparison methods to prove her point. She basically says that not only do doctors in the US make the most in the world, but also implies that doctors in the US make more than they should.
One way to compare cross-country data is to adjust the salaries for purchasing-power parity — that is, adjusting the numbers so that $1,000 of salary buys the same amount of goods and services in every country, providing a general sense of a physician’s standard of living in each nation.
…They show that American general practitioners and nurses earn more than their counterparts in other developed countries…
…Another way is look at how a doctor’s salary compares to the average national income in that doctor’s country — that is, gross domestic product per capita. …
As a country’s wealth [GDP] rises, so should doctors’ pay. But even accounting for this trend, the United States pays doctors more than its wealth would predict
I don’t deny that doctors here in the US make a lot of money, even normalized and compared to other countries. But a number that I think would actually mean more is, instead of salary, the take-home income.
Rampell mentions that American doctors first go through medical school, really expensive medical school and carry a lot of debt into the profession. But she fails to even acknowledge other costs that belie the high salaries: malpractice insurance premiums, continuing medical education classes, overhead for a private practice, licensing/exam fees, the hours worked or spent on paperwork, etc.
I’m not making a value statement here. Just reminding Economix readers that statistics – and pretty graphs, even crunched 3 different ways – are devious, even when used correctly.
Tags: physician salaries, statistics
