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Comment by arcanus | Hacker News Reader

> I don’t want an overworked, stressed doctor. I want a peaceful, calm, thoughtful doctor with a happy home life.

I agree but doctors should go in with open eyes that working fewer hours will require more doctors, and this will in turn drive down MD salaries.

I think that's a great idea, but that seems to be the undeniable tradeoff.

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But if doctors work fewer hours that means the supply of doctor hours will be vastly outstripped by the demand causing the price of a doctor hour to increase. So wouldn't it be a self-balancing mechanism?

But doctor hours are mostly fungible.

I mean, no, if everyone works less hours and there are more doctors, MD salaries will stay the same

How do you propose to make more doctors? Right now the primary bottleneck is limited residency program funding from Medicare. There hasn't been much political appetite for major increases.

https://savegme.org/

Given our aging demographic profile with increasing chronic disease burden the problem is likely to get worse. Expect higher prices and longer waits to see a doctor. A more realistic solution will probably be to shift more primary care to lower credentialed practitioners such as Physician Assistants and Nurse Practitioners.

Florida and Tennessee recently changed rules to allow foreign doctors to be licensed more easily.

The European union way, allow doctors from other countries to be licensed easily.

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