alt Hacker NewsIt's literally baked into the H1B law was confirmed by a congressional report on the program: https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/reports/O...
> Just pay American workers more.
If we set aside software engineering - 40% of rural doctors in the US are here on H1B visas. There's not a "pay them more" button we can hit that generates more domestic doctors, especially not in under 10 years. All you'd do is compete amongst a limited supply.
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There actually is a pay them more button that the federal and state government controls, but I doubt they'd hit it. Many of those rural docs are compensated heavily by Medicaid (EDIT: have a high % of Medicaid patients - compensation is a separate story), but the reimbursement structure often penalizes those rural docs vs. those that take positions in suburban and urban environments. Some states permit a flat reimbursement structure where patient volume is the only difference, but other states further penalize the rural docs by "shaping" reimbursement rates such that more funding goes to the urban and suburban areas.
This administration could address that, but if anything, they seem to be moving in the opposite direction.
> There's not a "pay them more" button we can hit that generates more domestic doctors, especially not in under 10 years.
That's literally how the button works. An undersupply in the market, increases prices.. kids and students deciding what they want to do with their life, see the wages and decide 10 years of school is worth it... and after 10 years you get more doctors.
If there's an undersupply, that's a clear indication that young people are looking at the field and deciding the wages don't justify the investment.
By short-circuiting the process of the free market, you're guaranteeing the shortage will continue.