Requiring doctors to get a 4-year-degree before medical school also adds to the cost. The degree can be in anything: film crit, classics, Japanese history. those are valuable things to know, but they clearly aren't necessary to medical school or else you'd disqualify the people who couldn't give a solid explaination of how Miazaki was influenced by Heian literature. The cost of a $200,000 degree plus interest on a loan that doesn't start getting paid back until after med school shouldn't be dumped on the medical system.