America's Self-Inflicted Doctor Shortage - PolyMatter

[TexasTowelie]

Here are the most important points from the video:

- 83 million Americans live in medically underserved areas, with a projected shortage of up to 86,000 doctors by 2036 due to population growth, an aging population, and physician retirements.
- The real bottleneck is residency positions, not medical schools — last year, ~10,000 qualified med school graduates were denied a residency slot, blocking them from practicing medicine.
- A failed 1980s policy froze the U.S. healthcare pipeline for 25 years (1980–2005), based on a flawed theory that too many doctors were driving unnecessary healthcare demand.
- Congress capped subsidized residencies at 1996 levels, meaning the U.S. still funds roughly the same number of residencies today despite having 73 million more Americans.
- The geographic distribution of residencies is also frozen, leaving fast-growing cities like Las Vegas and Orlando critically short on doctors while older cities retain disproportionate allocations.
- Proposed solutions include unfreezing residency subsidies, incentivizing primary care in rural areas, streamlining pathways for foreign-trained doctors, offering accelerated med school programs, and expanding the role of qualified nurses.