Why not just expand the amount of spots and train more doctors? Surely they don't take everyone that applies and then filter them out (even CS doesn't do that).
In my opinion though, I can't see why the number of doctors should be something that is principally controlled by congress at all, and ideally some other method should come about.
Until that happens though, it's up to Congress to fix this.
Looking around the world, it seems to me that most developed countries (if not all) suffer from the same problem of lack of doctors. Some mask it by pulling doctors from poorer countries (including poorer developed countries), but it seems like there's a lack of doctors everywhere. If that's the case then Congress can't really be the only limiting factor.
Why are there no developed countries that have far too many doctors? The only countries that I can think of that export doctors are Cuba and third world countries.
So baseline if you're smart and hard working, you need to take the hardest college track from ages 18-22, medical school (22-26). Then work two jobs worth of hours as a trainee making well under 100k starting at age 27 and into your early 30s [3] so you can't save or pay down any of your debt from getting here.
So if you choose to be a doctor, you have to: (a) dedicate to working your ass off at 18, (b) keep at it until you're in your early 30s, (c) start with massive debt
I think it's actually pretty amazing that we have as many doctors as we do.
[1] https://medschoolinsiders.com/medical-student/how-long-is-re... [2] https://www.ama-assn.org/medical-students/preparing-residenc... [3] https://www.inspiraadvantage.com/blog/how-much-do-medical-re...