Comment by fc417fc802
4 hours ago
To be clear, that's in the US where we have private health care thus it generally isn't rationed provided you're willing to pay. However what we have is a guild system that in effect tightly constrains the total supply. Depending on the state one of the ways that urgent care commonly gets around this is with ever controversial nurse practitioners. Which is to say that quite a few state legislatures appear to be pushing back against the guild.
To tease apart above for non-US readers, to the best of my understanding.
The US government funds most of the resident slots through which the path to become a doctor runs.
The AMA generally (but not always) lobbies against increasing slots too much, reasoning it would decrease the premium doctors (its members) could charge.
As a result, most of the time the US has too low of a supply of doctors, especially in general, highly-demanded areas (family medicine, internal medicine, psychiatry).