Moral of the story is, get a good Step 1 score, and match into the right specialty. Also, avoid all primary care specialties like the fu**ing plague. And whoever mentioned a 'surgeon' only making $200,000 a year, he must be a pretty shitty surgeon, because gen surg without subspecialty in the NE is making at least $325k, anything sub spec is in the 400k+ range.

All of this aside, doctors in the primary care specialties are being squeezed the hardest. Medicare/Medicaid cut reimbursements further and further, this is creating a situation where doctors have opted out of EMTALA all together, and those patients on Medicare/Medicaid cant find a doctor who is even taking these patients. Additionally, the LOW reimbursements that some group of government dipshits get together and decide a doctors time for a routine checkup is only worth $28 dollars (and 45 minutes worth of paperwork in order to get paid for that one patient) causes other health insurers to lower their reimbursements, afterall, why should Bluecross pay that same doctor $75 for a routine checkup when Medicare/Medicaid is paying them $28? This is called artifically manipulating the market. Laws which forbid healthcare practioners from advertising their fees for service prevent free market competition. The free market is not failing healthcare, government intervention is destroying healthcare with a bulldozer.