[notch898a]

The only significant ways I'm aware of that people get needed rx medications outside of physicians and mid-level practitioners is to leave the country or use "vet"/"animal" drugs. What are the simpler other alternatives currently available?

[wbl]

Make more physicians and pay them to work in rural areas. Congress can just do this.

[BurningFrog]

How does Congress make physicians?

[cguess]

Incentives. Plenty of people would go into rural medicine if it wasn't paying crap and dealing with nothing but elderly Medicare patients because of the lack of health insurance for people just marginally above the Medicaid line. Of course this means there's basically no support currently for the hospitals and more than half are being bought up by private equity anyways and shipping it all to the smallest bottom line.

Congress can do a lot.

[BurningFrog]

Since the supply of doctors is limited, spending more money on them only increases doctor pay, not the number of doctors.

[wbl]

It funds residencies

[goldenkey]

American Medical Association is basically a union that artificially caps the number of doctors of each speciality.

[notch898a]

The medical cartel loves to cloak their policies under the auspices of safety. In the end you'll find their policies magically result in massive profits for bureaucrats and chokepoints that constrain the supply of gatekeepers. This is not accidental.

[hoseja]

Advanced healthcare is also one of major incentives the state has to keep people in line, obedient and participating.