Actually the biggest reason there are too few doctors is that medicine is hard. There’s a very limited pool of people who are smart enough and have the desire to do the grueling 12 years (or more depending on the specialization) of study.
That’s why it seems like every other person you meet is studying to be a nurse practitioner or physician’s assistant or aroma therapist or some such thing. They get to help people in a shorter time period and with a much lower likelihood of failure.
And these other people have much less likelihood of getting sued also. Tort reform is badly needed.
I’ve heard that about 2/3 of all OB/GYN doctors get sued for malpractice sometimes in their career. And that yearly malpractice insurance premiums can run into six figures for these doctors. You think doctors make a lot of money, because they have six figure incomes, but they also have some huge expenses that you and I don’t have.
But I’m sure Obama has figured out what to do about malpractice and other issues in medicine.
In my case, 13...
4 years Undergraduate School
1 year Graduate school
4 Years Medical School
1 Year Internship
3 Years Residency
Lifetime of Continuing Education
Medical Boards
2 Specialty Boards
And I still feel insufficient