April 16, 2010
The Wall Street Journal told readers that the country will face a serious shortage of doctors in the next decade. It notes that in principle the country could bring in more foreign doctors, however, U.S. rules require foreign doctors to do a residency in the United States. Since U.S. residency slots are limited, the availability of foriegn-trained physicians will not help.
This article is remarkable because it does not include any quotes from economists about the enormous cost that the economy is being forced to bear as a result of the extreme protectionism used to maintain doctors’ salaries. It would not be difficult to design residency programs in other countries that met U.S. standards. (Even a doctor should be smart enough to do that.) We can also include a subsidy to the countries of origin of foreign-trained physicians to ensure that they can train more than enough doctors to make up for those that come to practice in the United States.
This could hugely increase the supply of doctors in the United States. This would lower the wages of physicans and reduce the cost of health care. This article should have been reported as an example of protectionism by a powerful special interest group being carried to absurd levels (e.g. Buy American policies times 1000), but instead the issue was never even raised.
–Dean Baker
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