Should Cardiologists Lead the Way in Health Reform?

Here is an opinion piece from today's Journal of the American College of Cardiology, in which the authors claim that cardiologists should mobilize and provide leadership in health reform. The authors refer several times to preserving cardiologists' compensation as a primary goal of reform efforts. They suggest that efforts to maintain their current compensation levels should be presented as a form of "professionalism."

Given that the average starting salary of a cardiologist in the US is $442K, to make salary preservation an explicit goal of health reform is... rather crass. I have seen a similar argument made in the pages of an American College of Radiology newsletter. Radiologist salaries top $380K annually. These salaries compare to starting salaries in primary care of around $140K. It's no wonder that 75% of all US physicians today are specialists. For decades, primary care has been getting the short straw in the US health system.

Health reform is not about how much a specialist gets paid. It's about getting more and better care to patients. I'm afraid that mobilizing specialist physicians to preserve their incomes is not going to bring about better patient care. I would dare to say that it will achieve exactly the opposite.