>For the past quarter-century, the American Medical Association and other industry groups have predicted a glut of doctors and worked to limit the number of new physicians. In 1994, the Journal of the American Medical Association predicted a surplus of 165,000 doctors by 2000.
Most residencies are paid for my Medicare funds. The 1997 Balanced Budget Act capped the number of residencies that Medicare funds, which led to fewer physicians. Who pushed for the cap?
>Lawmakers received cover from the American Medical Association (AMA), the Association of American Medical Colleges, and other major stakeholders in American medicine who endorsed caps on funding for residents and other graduate medical education programs. In March 1997, months before the Balanced Budget Act was enacted, the AMA even suggested reducing the number of US residency positions by approximately 25% from 25,000 to fewer than 19,000. “The United States is on the verge of a serious oversupply of physicians,” said the AMA and other physicians’ groups in a joint statement
https://qz.com/1676207/the-us-is-on-the-verge-of-a-devastati...
And also in the past they have lobbied to shut down medical schools which led to shortages in the 60s. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMhpr033066
They have recently pushed for more physicians but those changes will take time.