What you need to realize is that nursing salaries in the US are NOT uniform. From what I've seen in past discussions about it is they range anywhere from $20/hr -> $100k/year. The $100k/year are usually achieved only in cities and generally only by travel nurses.
The majority of nurses, that I've seen, are clocking in at 50->60k yearly salary.
Sort of like saying "Oh, that google dev makes $300k a year. How much more do devs in the US need?"
"Sysadmin" seems the most readily comparable title in IT, going from "I push software to Windows PCs" to "I manage supercomputer clusters."
And the answer to that is "how much is Google worth?" If your business relies on the efforts of software engineers to design and build your primary products, they should have the primary equity in the company. So no, even Google developers aren't paid nearly enough...and they're certainly overworked, regardless of how much they make.
The average tenure at Google is 4 years. This means that most current Google's have joined when the company was already at sky high valuation. They made incremental improvements to the product line. But arguing that they should own the majority of the shares is just ridiculous. Think about it: if google had made no new development in the last 4 years, how much would it still be worth ? The answer is: not as much as today, but probably quite a lot.
Current employees thus deserve a part of the pie, as they are the one tending for it. But when they joined the pie was already very nice, and they had 0 impact on that. Not with their work nor their investment, so they can't claim that part for themselves.
While $100K/year is not the norm throughout the country, it is normal in my city (non-SV). Travel nurses made a lot more during COVID.
From my conversations, pay is not the reason they are considering leaving. Working conditions are.
Something something freemarket no longer applies when it comes to paying peons?
It never did.
They will bear a lot of that, because these people care for their patients and leaving a job because of bad circumstances also means leaving their patients behind with those bad circumstances.
Which is not something that comes easy to everybody who makes "helping others" such a big part of their work motivation.
People get into it because they love it, and then have their love exploited for profit by businesses masquerading as social charities.
Some hospitals and clinics do great philanthropic work. There are also a lot that don't, but have the same cross over their door.
To be honest, I am amazed that Canada has a healthcare system left.
Decades of mismanagement and underinvestment aside, almost any Canadian healthcare worker can cross the border and instantly see a substantial pay bump and increase in QoL.
I do imagine within the next 20 years, Canadian healthcare is going to look vastly different. Like something from an emerging market, where sure there is universal healthcare, but you generally avoid it if you have the means.
Already happened. It's impossible to get a primary care physician in the Maritime provinces and in BC.
For example, I have to pay $9000 a year BEFORE my insurance starts covering healthcare costs. (at $5000 my insurance starts paying out and I owe 10% of the bill). My insurance does not cover medicine costs at all.
Besides they need their health workers too.
This seems perfectly consistent with econ101. Prices for something is high, so we need more supply.