So instead of limiting positions to only those who are qualified (you're grossly exaggerating the number of "qualified" people who don't gain admission), you suggest we just open the floodgates, let anyone in so they can accrue obscene debt, then let the graduate into a field where they'll be compensated far less than they are now so they can live the rest of their lives trying to dig out of debt? Sounds pretty similar to what happened with federal loans for undergrad education, it's not like there are any problems with that system now...
I agree, but you're once again grossly exaggerating the portion of that burden that lies with the training or salary of physicians. The proportion of healthcare expenditure on physicians and salary has remained stable since 1975 (~20%), and the cost of procedures has generally remained stable when compared to inflation rates. What has increased, is the incidence and prevalence of chronic diseases, our ability to detect these conditions, as well as the number of people insured and seeking treatment. When there is more disease and more people seeking treatment then the cost is obviously going to go up. Pointing fingers at doctors for increasing medical costs because technology has made identifying a condition easier and more people are seeking treatment is idiotic. You want to make things cheaper, find a way to convince the general public to embrace preventative medicine and actually take care of themselves so we decrease the prevalence of chronic diseases like diabetes, heart disease, and cerebrovascular disease. Do that and not only do you have less actual expenditure, you create a healthier pool of insured/covered and drop premium rates for all (or Medicaid/medicare expenditure).
Also, good job completely ignoring all of the completely legitimate points Goro was making and responding to the one thing you found ethically questionable. I see you've become a master of moving the goalposts.
No. In 2015, around 60,000 people took the MCAT and around 48,000 applied to medical schools. If we assume the average med school class size is 100 people, that means there are 4,000 slots in the top 40 schools. That's less than 10% of applicants and less than 7% of people taking the MCAT. That does not include people that want to pursue medicine but don't take the MCAT. So no, most American undergrads stand no chance at all getting into a top 30-40 med school, even if they are a far better student than the average UG student.
As to your statement in parentheses, some corrections: AACOMAS is not merging with AMCAS, and neither really have anything to do with much of actual medical education. The AOA match and the ACGME match are merging, however COCA (the licensing body for DO schools) and the LCME (licensing body for MD schools) are remaining completely separate entities as well as AACOMAS and AMCAS. There never were restrictions on being an allopathic grad, as they have always had their match. There's a plethora of reasons floating around about why the merger is occurring, but basically the ACGME said if the AOA didn't want to merge, then AOA grads won't be eligible for ACGME fellowships. This would have been a huge problem for the DO side of things, so the merge was instituted. There are plenty of threads already on this site about the merger, and you can get all the info you could want with the search function.
