1. New != cheaper, but that's never what I was arguing. I argued that if the bottleneck (legal or organizational) were removed, enough new capacity would be built to reduce costs (the word "enough" is key).
2. Easy access to loan money increases demand for degrees, yes, but you're forgetting the supply side of this equation. Supply will increase to compensate unless there's a barrier to creating more supply (such as accreditation or actual economic demand for prestige, which only becomes significant when the degree itself doesn't suffice for employment).
Why would government funding of medical school not fall victim to a similar fate to GME? What if someone offered the compromise "government pays for tuition, but then government gets to set the salaries." How appealing would that be?
3. I'm familiar with what IS done, but I would be astounded if the "we can't possibly cut expenses" line continued once competition started to kick in.
5. Yes, the point is to have students pay for their education, so that the supply of medical education can scale with the demand for it. It's not reasonable to expect the U.S. government to manage the supply of doctors at this time or in the near future.
2. Easy access to loan money increases demand for degrees, yes, but you're forgetting the supply side of this equation. Supply will increase to compensate unless there's a barrier to creating more supply (such as accreditation or actual economic demand for prestige, which only becomes significant when the degree itself doesn't suffice for employment).
Why would government funding of medical school not fall victim to a similar fate to GME? What if someone offered the compromise "government pays for tuition, but then government gets to set the salaries." How appealing would that be?
3. I'm familiar with what IS done, but I would be astounded if the "we can't possibly cut expenses" line continued once competition started to kick in.
4. No supply controls? Xodarap's evidence looks awfully damning: http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/4561/does-the-am...
5. Yes, the point is to have students pay for their education, so that the supply of medical education can scale with the demand for it. It's not reasonable to expect the U.S. government to manage the supply of doctors at this time or in the near future.