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People who have no idea about an industry saying how that industry should be regulated.
The reason we have different professions withing the medical industry is because of the years of training it takes to specialise in that area and get to a level of competency in that field.
Optometrists in the UK already prescribe glasses and contact lenses, I'm not familiar with the US system for glasses prescriptions but having to see more than one person seems... Illogical and expensive.
Nurses already push meds. After a suitably qualified and experienced doctor has assessed the patients records, seen or read a history and decided on a course of treatment. A nurse is not capable and should not be expected to know that level of detail about drug interactions and treatment pathways, that is literally what the doctor is for. Not everyone has the capacity / interest to know all this stuff, but we still need staff to tend to and care for our patients. Hence we have nurses.
Not to be disrespectful to nurses because they do incredible work and are essential to the medical industry and patient care but I happen to know quite a few nurses and doctors through friends and what I've come to realise is that anyone who can follow an instruction can become a nurse. And there are a lot of bad nurses. Thankfully not just anyone can become a doctor in the western world, because we have stringent regulations and laws.
The major contributing factor that adds cost to medicine are patents. Companies artificially inflating the prices of drugs and medical devices, not wages on the front line.
People don't seem to realise that the reason we entrust certain people with certain jobs is not because that highly qualified person has done x procedure x numbers of times, it's because they have a very deep and thorough understanding of any complications and what to do when things go wrong. Not just in medicine but in engineering and many other critical professions where decisions cost lives. What you're talking about when you say deregulating is vastly increasing risk. There's a reason why current regulations exist and were created in the first place, because at one time they didn't exist and people died or became seriously ill.
I'd be genuinely interested to know what medical procedures people here would be happy to have a nurse perform rather than a doctor.