Comment by shagie

Not everyone wants to relocate to rural hospital areas (where they're often most in demand as a fraction of the total workers). The wages are often tied to what insurance (and medicare) can reimburse and that rate isn't necessarily going up fast enough to properly staff hospitals.

Bigger ones in the cities with more expensive procedures can afford it better. The smaller hospitals an hour or two drive away from a city are the ones that are hurting the most.

https://www.marketplace.org/story/2025/11/14/how-trumps-100k...

> Frederick Health Hospital in rural Frederick County, Maryland, is ground zero for the hurdles the new fee has created. The hospital is the only emergency room in a county that’s approximately 650 square miles in size. Patients would have to drive as far as 50 miles to get to another facility.

> “We see about 70,000 to 80,000 emergency department visits — one of the busiest emergency departments in the state,” said Jamie White, chief nursing officer at Frederick Health.

> Not only is her hospital one of the busiest in the state, it’s also chronically short-staffed. White said it can’t compete with salaries at hospitals in urban areas or with jobs that allow for more work-life-balance.

Wage suppression? Maybe. But it's not "raise wages" that is an option - its "close the hospital".