Bill Moyers

Bill Moyers recently blamed doctors’ salaries for rising healthcare costs.  Though this is only the latest Bill Moyers targeted assault on private sector salaries, this one is by far the most laughable.

The educational and work experience required to become a neurosurgeon, one of the highest paid doctors, is extraordinary.  It generally takes four years of undergraduate education in a rigorously significant scientific curriculum, four years of medical school and twelve years of residency.  After all that education, a neurosurgeon might make $200,000 to $400,000 per year after five to nine years of practice, just in time to repay all his college and medical school loans.  General Practitioners, the least compensated of doctors, must undertake the same education requirements with only two to three years of residency.  A General Practitioner can expect to earn only $120,000 to $160,000 after five to nine years of practice.

By comparison, journalists attend four years of the least challenging educational curriculum offered at the undergraduate level, then go on to earn far more than doctors as Moyers himself has done.  A minute fraction of journalists have earned a master’s degree as Moyers has, and fewer still possess a doctorate degree, all of which combined would constitute considerably less education than that required for a medical doctor.  It is no wonder Moyers refuses to disclose his actual salary, but each year his son’s foundation awards his father with hundreds of thousands of dollars in gifts above and beyond what his PBS taxpayer funded salary provides, estimated to be well over $200,000.  Moyer’s fellow journalists tilt the pay scales even more than he, with Katie Couric earning $12 million/year, Brian Williams earning $10 million/year and Charlie Gibson earning $8 million/year for network news programs that barely break even.  Absolutely appalling considering these journalist “earn” such salaries for merely reading news from a teleprompter, a far cry from removing tumors from beneath brain stems.

If Bill Moyers is serious about funding healthcare reform, he should unite with his fellow journalist and donate all salaried monies above the $50,000 per year they are really worth to a charity that would offer free health insurance to those who need it.  As a former student of divinity, Mr. Moyers should realize envy is a serious sin, typically clouding one’s judgment about others.  It seems in this case his envy is making him see green where it doesn’t exist.