The doctor shortage would be lessened if medical resources were allocated more intelligently. As it is, doctors have a tendency to make work for themselves. The

The doctor shortage would be lessened if medical resources were allocated more intelligently. As it is, doctors have a tendency to make work for themselves. The system needs lots of doctors simply to keep their charade going. We all get to a point where we need less doctoring, not more. During the 'obamacare' debates some stupid politicians called this transition in the goals of treatment "death panels" [1], but the realists on the other side of the aisle didn't figure out how to intelligently point out that sometimes letting people die gracefully is kinder than subjecting them to every possible medical treatment. My brother works with old people in Arizona. He's paid a salary, and makes a game of trying to spend his employer's resources efficiently. On a recent visit I noted his comment about how he's just doing palliative care. Most doctors aren't on salary, and are paid via the standard medicare "fee-for-service" (FFS) [2] model, which is a good way to make people profitable to their medical providers. [0] My earlier comment about my mom's elderly friend's predicament: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20224523 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20224523 [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_panel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_panel [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fee-for-service https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fee-for-service