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PaperclipPerfector  7mo ago (text post)   29327 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 2, 2023

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The problem is that the government restricts the supply of people allowed to practice medicine through regulations

This is like saying the government restricts the supply of tanks or something. There's no regulation artificially restraining something that would be in more abundance on the free market, the subsidy just isn't big enough. There is no law restricting resident doctors, which hospitals can have as many of as they want, there just isn't extra public funding to have more of them, so hospitals make up funding shortfalls out of pocket, from state governments, or philanthropy. Cutting government would ofc result in less residency slots, not more.

There are lots of regulations that genuinely do restrict the supply of medicine via laws that shield hospitals from anti-trust and prevent new competitors from emerging. But these are mostly on the state level. Even the lengths of residencies themselves are usually required by state-level licensing rules. If there's anything federal scale that's as significant as CON/COPA laws, I'm more than interested to hear about it though, that's why I asked.

The entire edifice of credentialing and licensing is built on government regulations that the AMA lobbied for. I can travel to India for a surgery but if an Indian doctor moves here he can't perform the operation without jumping through the AMA's hoops to give one example. I get that these are at the state level but since there are more or less similar requirements in every state I don't see that it matters all that much.

I get that these are at the state level but since there are more or less similar requirements in every state I don't see that it matters all that much.

It matters because if your plan is that we should cut spending because costs are inflated by supply restrictions, but you have no plan or authority to address those supply restrictions, then you're in a worse place than before. @guesswho put it much more succinctly than I could.

Access to medication is gated behind prescriptions. Even if you know exactly what is wrong with you and exactly what medicine you need, you have to go to a doctor to access it. I guess this is more inflating demand rather that restricting supply, but the result is the same

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