I think you would end up with a balance. Consultants aren't going to want to pay 120k a year to an H1B engineer, companies in SF or the big companies outside it

I think you would end up with a balance. Consultants aren't going to want to pay 120k a year to an H1B engineer, companies in SF or the big companies outside it (Amazon, Microsoft) have no problem doing that for an experienced engineer. Adjust the cap so you don't end up with 5 people per slot and costs should stay reasonable.