[lotsofpulp]

Why would it not? Staffing for healthcare workers had been barebones for a long time before Covid.

Obviously, the acute situation of today, I would not count. But when managing a society, and you pay rock bottom prices and lower quality of life for a couple decades to limit supply of healthcare workers so that you are running on razor thin margins, then the future where lack of healthcare workers in cases of emergency are inevitable.

[maxerickson]

Because you are allowed to do the work if you are licensed. The cost of a nurse is conditioned on the licensed supply, not the willingness of Joe Programmer to do it for $800,000.

At the moment, if you chose to go into nursing, the choice wouldn't matter, because the licensing pipeline is full!

[lotsofpulp]

I agree with you that in the current situation of 1 to 2 years, my choice does not matter.

> The cost of a nurse is conditioned on the licensed supply, not the willingness of Joe Programmer to do it for $800,000.

The supply of a nurse is conditioned on cash flow prospects. If nursing paid more and had a history of having decent pay to lifestyle ratio, then there would have been more supply of nurses.