Quote from anesthesiaman:
Therefore I am planning on a 3 yr stint in medicine until its not worth it anymore. I doubt it will get any better, but in the remote chance it does, I will stay.
Looking at this from a Canadian situation, I think you're a bit premature in saying that it "won't be worth it" anymore in a few years. I know that the US view is that we have socialized medicine here and it is like long Soviet bread lines to go to the doctor (and indeed, true sometimes

) but anecdotally I think that anestheiologists are extremely well compensated here, certainly in the several hundred K per year.
Also, I don't think our Canadian situation is sustainable. There are too many boomers aging that will strain our system so much that at some point (but not without big fights) it will become less socialized, some sort of two-tiered, etc... I also marvel at how much money some dentists here are making (again, anecdotally, but boy does my dentist run a big nice office with lots of staff, so I would expect that throws off a fair bit of profit) because dental care is not included under Medicare in Canada. So maybe you could do anasthetics for dentistry or something...
I have a feeling that "Obamacare" will be some hodge-podge of insurance free-market + socialized etc. Probably an "average" of what the US situation is right now and Canada. So I think you would have a big opportunity cost of giving up a pretty much guaranteed big income to a risky chance of a big payoff. Agreed that the huge incomes made by some US doctors will be less, but I would be surprised if the declines are more than 30-40% at the high end (just throwing around some numbers, maybe earning 600K rather than 1MM) - and for the bulk in the middle maybe earning 400K it probably wouldn't decline more than 10%. How could it? Somebody qualified has to anesthetize people unless we're going to start having people biting down on sticks while they get sliced open...
I agree with the other posters that the doctors who can combine business savvy with their work will be able to find ways to make lots of money in the chaos of the US healthcare economy. No way are you guys (Americans) going to full socialized medicine - I just can't see it happening.
While you may indeed be able to make it as a good trader, my 2c is always to keep the medicine door open.