Comment by YZF
There are still huge incentives for doctors to go the US. They can make a lot more money and have a much higher quality of life. They also have access to the very latest equipment and technology and likely the best academic and research system as well. This is a problem in Canada where we have a shortage of doctors.
What's more likely, for a Canadian or European doctor to want to move to the US or for an American doctor to want to move to Europe or Canada? I would say that even with all the current "noise" (which certainly moves the needle a little bit) this is still very true. When we see doctors leaving the US in droves for better careers in China, Russia, Europe or Canada then I would say this is a real problem.
> There are still huge incentives for doctors to go the US. They can make a lot more money and have a much higher quality of life.
The US limits the supply of doctors by limiting the number of medical residency slots. Foreign doctors are then required to do a US medical residency even if they've already done the equivalent in their own country, which consumes one of the slots. The result is that you effectively can't increase the number of doctors in the US through immigration, you can only change the proportionality in the finite number of slots.
The way for any country to resolve a doctor shortage is to train more doctors, which is the exact thing the US prohibits.