Re:The darker side of being a doctor
by jjackson5324 on Sunday April 14, 2024 @05:26PM
(#40034630)
So you’re saying that increasing the number of doctors will result in more medical services being consumed which means higher costs for the gov?
That’s the view of the government?
Re:The darker side of being a doctor
by thaumasiotes on Sunday April 14, 2024 @11:48PM
(#40036908)
Yes.
Think of it like increasing lanes in a highway. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braess%27s_paradox]
Or induced demand.
That said, likely individual medical outcomes would be better.
Large scale systems tend to produce… odd behaviors.
The doctors are simply wrong; the state is correct from a pernicious point of view.
Because the state is responsible for buying so much of the total supply of medical care, they generally view things from the perspective of "how much are we spending on the category 'medical care'?", rather than the perspective of how much any given treatment costs.
Increasing the number of doctors lowers the cost of all treatments and is unambiguously good.
However, it does raise the total amount of medical spending, which, in the eyes of the state, is bad.