edit: The only reason for defensiveness about this on HN is that plenty of people here are in the 1% (I'm certainly in the 5%), and many of their friends and family.
The reason doctors in the US make multiples of the income of doctors anywhere else in the world is because of high-dollar lobbying (for their own sake), and payoffs from pharma and medical device companies in return for support. If doctors in the US were reduced to the salaries of doctors in the UK, the bottom would fall out of the yacht business.
The non-profit hospital racket is one of the most lucrative tax avoidance schemes in the US right now. Two thirds of US hospitals are "non-profit", and almost 100% of all new facilities are non-profit.
edit: The only reason for defensiveness about this on HN is that plenty of people here are in the 1% (I'm certainly in the 5%), and many of their friends and family.
The reason doctors in the US make multiples of the income of doctors anywhere else in the world is because of high-dollar lobbying (for their own sake), and payoffs from pharma and medical device companies in return for support. If doctors in the US were reduced to the salaries of doctors in the UK, the bottom would fall out of the yacht business.