It's not white guilt. Google "poor white privilege". Hopefully we can resolve this before an idiotic debate emerges on this thread (the adjective is meant to describe the hypothetical debate, not any specific person).
And finally, remember that medical schools aren't designed to accept students based on who wants it the most. They're intended to produce the best doctors for this country, so that also means accepting a diverse class with the hopes that doctor demographics will reflect the ethnic demographics of the populations that they serve.
How about you google rich black privilege? Alternatively, google the privilege of someone that is both hispanic and white. I'm sure that'll blow your mind. I've read all of those arguments before, and honestly they don't hold any water with me. I've lived it. Your arguments basically boil down to white people trying to imagine what it's like to be black, and black people trying to imagine what it's like being white. It simply doesn't work; you don't have adequate perspective. The other minority groups have basically just been shoehorned into this debate.
In any case, I do understand the importance of having minority physicians. Although it would likely be
far more effective to fix those problems earlier in the pipeline rather than later, and to address issues such as cost and length of medical education that deter low-income applicants. Minorities being disproportionately low-income are going to be disproportionately deterred by a $250k education that doesn't start to pay off until roughly a decade after undergraduate graduation, rather than immediately like in other careers. Having a shortage of residency and medical school spots certainly doesn't help either.
My point is, you can fix this problem of insufficient minority physicians without actually discriminating based upon race, and you could probably do a far better job of it. Issues like funding public K-12 schools on a state-wide basis rather than with county property taxes, so that schools in poorer areas are not funded less. Also reducing the interest rate charged on medical school student loans, which are disproportionately high due to sharing a risk poor with all other graduate students, rather than strictly with medical students.
Another great idea would be to create a medical student specific program similar to "Pay As You Earn" (PAYE), so that the risk of financial catastrophe due to $200k in loans at 7% interest is reduced, while making sure financial costs of the government program are better suited to the medical profession (rather than a massive loss for most students, as is currently the case).
My final idea for today is to allow the payment of student loans with pre-tax income. For those not familiar, currently only the interest on student loans is tax deductible. That's a really small benefit, and almost negligible. Let me highlight the issue: Say you borrow $180k in medical school. You defer in residency and begin paying it back post-residency, over a 10 year period. Your total interest accumulated is $148k, for a total of $328k. Doesn't look so bad, right? But wait, there's more! That's after-tax income. Assuming an effective tax rate of 33% at this income level (thanks Obama), you're going to pay back roughly 50% more in pre-tax income than you owe in after-tax income. So you must dedicate roughly $492k in pre-tax earnings to pay off those $180k in student loans. My proposal would allow you to pay off student loans with pre-tax income, so that it only takes $328k in income to pay off $328k in student loans. This logic behind this is that those earnings are covering essentially a business expense, and should not be taxed as 'profit', especially given the dire need for doctors in this country.
