> Anesthesiology, $600K+. Good $DEITY. To me that one number explains the entire state of the USA's health system. An anaesthesiologist is a life and death job, but it isn't a complex one compared to say an air traffic controller. In a competitive market, the amount paid to both wouldn't be too much different.

There must be one mother of a guild protecting anaesthesiologists supply in the USA. Where I live, the governments (ie the people who are supposed to represent the other 99.999% of people who aren't anaesthesiologists) ruthlessly crush such behaviour in any profession that lets it become a real problem. We've fired most airline pilots and imported them, live without electricity for a while, imported doctors from anywhere and everywhere until the medical admission boards got the hint.

The USA really needs to get itself a decent democracy, where the pollies actually represent the people who elected them.