Yeah, my parents told me once that when my grandparents pass away there was a nice chunk of money that would be coming. I never planned around it or anything. Some time after they passed I was a little curious about it and asked what happened, that was pretty much what they said, that it probably had all been used up by hospital and nursing home bills. End of life care is the last chance to suck up that dough, I guess.

More like the nursing homes.

It's hospitals not doctors. Doctors get all that money only when they run their own private practice, and life support rooms are all in big hospitals, so the money is distributed between insurance and hospital management, and doctors get paid like all other skilled workers, and probably less than scuba diving welders.

My observation is that doctors are getting squeezed, other staff moreso. They’re getting pushed harder and harder for more and more productivity out of them.

A doctor in my family quit and retired early because (basically) their group got more corporate and burned him out. I heard of a dentist who quit over ethics issues once their group was acquired by private equity.

Not that they aren’t well off, but I’d be careful blaming working professionals like doctors, engineers and such so much.

I'm a huge fan of not passing along any substantial generational wealth. Above certain threshold - I'll give it 15 times of country's median annual income - it only serves to accumulate wealth.

Very true. You have to spend down in order for Medicaid to pay everything.

Necropost at this point but yup, the only 'stable' sector of the US economy is .... healthcare.

(I would say 'and the military industrial complex', but uh suprusingly no to that, most of those major players are mired in scandals and major fuckups that seriously threaten their solvency and credibility)

After the AI bubble pops, the American economy will essentially be primarily a gigantic, extractive, hospice care economy.

You know, Death Panels, run by AI/LLMs, the exact nightmare scenario that all the Boomers were told would result from any attempt to meaningfully reform the healthcare system.

And most of those healthcare workers will be braindead Gen Alphas that literally can't read, but managed to get some kind of nursing certificate at a degree mill.