That comment represents a fundamental misunderstanding of graduate medical education (residency). It is not college. Residents have already graduated from medical school with an MD/DO degree. They paid for medical school in the same ways as any other students (sometimes including tax funding). Many of them have >$200K in student debt by the time they graduate.
Residents are employees of teaching hospitals. They aren't really students. They're more like post-docs in academia. Even though hospitals can recoup some of the expenses of their residency programs by charging patients for care delivered by residents, overall residency programs operate at a financial loss. The funding has to come from somewhere. Lowering already low wages for residents to close the gap and thus forcing them to take on even more debt is no solution. We all benefit from having more physicians so I fail to understand the objection to subsidizing residency programs with taxes.
As an aside, I’ve always wondered - residencies famously overwork newly minted doctors - they’re allowed to work up to 80 works, and for incredibly low salaries considering the education level required.
Given that they have this valuable resource for an incredibly low wage - where is all the money for residency going? Why do hospitals require such a large subsidy to fill the gap?
This isn’t an accusation that hospitals are misusing the money - I genuinely do not understand the costs that go into residency here.
That's a complex question with no clear answer. It varies between hospitals and by medical specialty. In my previous comment I oversimplified things a bit because whether a particular program operates at a profit or loss depends largely on cost accounting. How do the accountants allocate overhead and other indirect costs besides resident wages? There are some general accounting guidelines on cost allocation but ultimately it's open to interpretation.
You seem confused about how medical education works. The link I posted above is relevant in that it has some good general information about the costs of residency programs. You might want to read it as a starting point for correcting your misunderstandings.
Most teaching hospitals are non-profits, often owned by educational institutions or state/local governments. They don't "write off" expenses from an income tax perspective because they aren't subject to income tax in the first place. Cost accounting as a discipline is only loosely related to financial accounting or tax accounting.
As for corruption, there are probably ways the current system could be improved. But you haven't presented any evidence of widespread illegal activity.
I genuinely can't tell if you are malicious, or easy to convince. The line about the non profit was mindboggling. You know that is just a business structure? It has nothing to do with profits weirdly enough.
>But you haven't presented any evidence of widespread illegal activity.
Its an immoral activity to corner a market, take tax dollars, lower quality for consumers, and raise prices. Its not illegal.
> residencies famously overwork newly minted doctors - they’re allowed to work up to 80 works
Wait til you learn about EMTs and paramedics. EMTs can be making as low as $11/hr. And at the last ambulance service I worked at there was no upper cap on hours. The only restriction was you had to be off-duty for 8 hours after every SIXTY on-duty.
Residents are employees of teaching hospitals. They aren't really students. They're more like post-docs in academia. Even though hospitals can recoup some of the expenses of their residency programs by charging patients for care delivered by residents, overall residency programs operate at a financial loss. The funding has to come from somewhere. Lowering already low wages for residents to close the gap and thus forcing them to take on even more debt is no solution. We all benefit from having more physicians so I fail to understand the objection to subsidizing residency programs with taxes.
https://savegme.org/