[Kevmo]

FYI

I’m not sure if there are any pertinent ping lists

[neverevergiveup]

Hell no, they don't. The AMA, like most organizations ANDS government, is run by people who are generally egocentric buttheads who are so bad at what they do such that you wouldn't trust sending them to the store for Twinkies with a note pinned to their shirt/blouse. They are more likely to be socialists (as long as their salaries are high) than to be free marketers.

[Regulator]

Thanks. Good comments here that throw light on the reality of the problem.

It’s obvious that the tangled web of interleaving constraints has led to absurd results: high prices for substandard docs, i.e. Foreigners.

The superdocs who had to accomplish two moon landings with 1600 SATs sensibly find the highest paying specialty program they can get into because it’s the only thing that made sense for the gauntlet they ran. This leaves a patchwork of PAs, LPNs, foreign docs, Saba school grads and other misfortunates to take up the slack in the GP space, least as far as I can tell.

Would the country be better served with more native born MDs from expanded or new US med schools? I think to a large degree, yes. Certainly it would level the competency across the board, and maybe free up the technician level people to spend more time doing a higher quality job.

But this thread appears to have good insight from actual medicos so I’ll leave it to them to comment.

[budj]

Milton Friedman considered this very question six decades ago.