Doctor Shortage Likely to Worsen With Health Law
31st July 2012
The Association of American Medical Colleges estimates that in 2015 the country will have 62,900 fewer doctors than needed. And that number will more than double by 2025, as the expansion of insurance coverage and the aging of baby boomers drive up demand for care. Even without the health care law, the shortfall of doctors in 2025 would still exceed 100,000.
Universal health care is no good without enough practitioners to provide it. Unlike dollars or shoes, you can’t just churn out more as you need them.
July 31st, 2012 at 12:22
“Unlike dollars or shoes, you can’t just churn out more as you need them.”
No, but we could have been doing a much better job of graduating more doctors during the last 30 years. But the AMA won’t allow it.
The AMA has a stranglehold on medical education. They are the DeBeers of the medical world, maintaining an artificial scarcity in order to keep medical incomes high. Why do their incomes need to be high? So they can pay off the atrociously high cost of their education. And why does their education cost so much? Medical schools–accredited by the AMA–maintain a ridiculously high staff-to-student ratio, in some places on the order of 1:1 or 1:2. So very few students must carry the cost of a lot of very high-priced instructors.
It’s a racket, pure and simple. Jimmy Hoffa would be proud.