While hospital physicians in America reportedly get higher pay than worldwide counterparts, a recent article says they won’t be apologizing any time soon. According to several leaders in the medical community who responded to the recent “Health Affairs” study, “higher pay is necessary to draw the best and brightest in physicians services to practice here.”

“It’s why people in the Middle East, when they have a serious illness, and seek excellent patient care, come to the Mayo Clinic or the Cleveland Clinic,” Dr. William Jessee, president of the Medical Group Management Association, told “Medscape Medical News.”

Miriam Laugesen and Sherry Glied, authors of the study, had also found that a “broader U.S. income structure as a possible reason U.S. primary care physicians (PCP) and orthopedists make at least a third more than their counterparts in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom.”

“The share of income received by people in the top 1% of the U.S. income distribution far exceeds the corresponding share in the comparison countries,” said Laugesen and Glied.

“American doctors may make more than elsewhere, but they aren’t considered as rich in their respective socioeconomic environment.

“While U.S. PCPs earn 42 percent of what orthopedic surgeons earn in Germany, PCPs make almost two-thirds as much as orthopedists,” the authors explained.