text: How many lives do firefighters(  as just one example) save? Maybe we should change the salary scale to be 'lives saved times X' ( where X is whatever anyone writing the checks deems it should be ). And so what if we don't attract that particular level of talent and he goes to private enterprise or wherever? There are these things called airplanes that people use to fly virtually anywhere in the country in five hours or less.  If they need this particular guy's services and he isn't in Oregon,  that is what they can do, fly. Plenty of great neurosurgeons in Cali, with an hour or two's flight to get there. We're not living in the days of horse and buggy.
  OHSU also get's hundreds of millions from the federal govt in the form of grants, which are of course taxpayer funded.
   Look, we're not going to agree. You think it's wonderful and just that the doc get's the big bucks while Oregon taxpayers get to pick up the tab for his lavish retirement lifestyle. I don't. Nothing more for me to add.