I can only react with this face: https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/112/480/Opo...

Help me understand this. Make it make sense...

1. Hospitals pay their nurses $X, which is way too low

2. Nurses quit because they're underpaid and overworked

3. Hospitals have a nurse staffing crisis and so pay travel nurses 2 * $X (or more!)

4. Hospitals are in a panic over the cost of travel nurses, yet instead of paying their nurses more to keep them around and eliminate the need for travel nurses, they ask the government to cap the cost of travel nurses

My mind is exploding over the ridiculousness of it.

It sounds nurses just need to be paid more, or travel nurses need to be paid less. Equilibrium is probably somewhere between the two extremes.

Apropos of nothing but why is the knee jerk reaction "we need executive action to fix this staffing problem?"

Why would travel nurses need to be paid less?

If wages equalized, it's unlikely they would all equalize to the top of the range. It's more likely to be somewhere in the top quartile or quintile.

Why would they equalize? I assume there is a premium required for not going back to one’s own home everyday.