The Economics of Medical School
Supply and demand rule the world, even in the world of health-care. The recent health reforms have struck a major blow in making health care affordable and accessible to all, but there are likely still other ways to increase the availability of health care to America, and even to the world. One of the most simplistic ways to accomplish this increase is with a greater number of doctors. Again, supply and demand has a huge effect upon the nature of the health care system. Part of the reason that health care is so costly is that there are not enough doctors to bring the cost down. This may not be a very large part of the issue, but it is an element of it, and it can be solved by making some changed to the medical school system.
As it stands right now, there are two primary hurdles to attending medical school. One hurdle is acceptance; most medical school applicants are not accepted, and therefore do not even get the opportunity to attempt to be doctors. This seems both problematic and advantageous; problematic because it prevents some students who might be able to make perfectly functional and successful doctors from every following that path, yet advantageous because it ensures that doctors only come from the highest possible quality of pre-med student, thus ensuring that doctors themselves will be of higher quality. This particular element of medical school is further complicated by the fact that often, the individuals determining medical students’ admission are other doctors. The more students they accept, the more competition they will later have, and the less doctors in general will be able to charge for their services. While this is a very mercenary assessment of the logic behind medical school’s exclusivity, it likely holds at least some truth to it.
The second hurdle to medical school attendance is simply the cost. There are financial aid institutions to help students without much money, coupled with the ability of students to get loans for medical school, which they will likely be able to pay off later, once they are earning money as doctors. But even so, most medical school students graduate with a hundred thousand dollars, or more, of debt. Even before reaching that point, most medical school students will have attended an undergraduate college or university, and earned a Bachelor’s degree; for those without much money, that would put them even more into debt, or make them even more reliant on financial aid.
The issue is not a simple one to solve, not at all, considering the American Medical Association and the amount of power it wields over medical schools, as well as the simple fact that doctors should not be forced under government control any more than any other private business should be. But for the second problem at least, government funding for would-be attendees of medical school would help tremendously. This would have to be a large amount of money, devoted to the students in return for their promise that they would eventually become doctors in America, but it could easily help to surmount any issues of potential doctors missing out because they could not afford the costs. The first issue, which is the exclusivity of medical school, is more problematic, and no obvious solution presents itself. But these are important problems which need to be considered, analyzed, and solved, one way or another. Having more skilled doctors is never a bad thing.