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Notes -
Of the OECD countries America has the third fewest doctors per Capita. U.S. Doctors have the highest average pay and average net worth. Med Schools began to limit the number of graduates in 1980 leading to the number of med school graduates shrinking relative to the population from 1980 to 2005 (figure 4). The U.S. government also ceased giving grants for the construction of new med schools under Reagan. The 1997 budget act limited residency slots as a cost-saving measure though that was repealed under Obama.
The AMA and the Graduate Medical Education National Advisory Committee predicted that there would be a physician oversupply in 1980, this could be just bad demography or you could note that restricting the supply of future physicians helps keep wages for current physicians high and current physicians are the membership of the AMA. A lot of it is also penny-wise pound foolish thinking from the government. Cutting residency slots and not building new med schools saves money in the short term, but as long as you're committed to paying for the medical care of the poor and elderly you're going to have to purchase doctors labor so you want to keep the supply of doctors high.
Doctors' salaries aren't the main cause of healthcare spending, it's maybe 8-10% of the overall costs. But increasing the number of residency slots and the supply of doctors seems like the low-hanging fruit of health care reform that avoids major ideological schisms.
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