[programmertote]

Wife is a doctor at a Miami suburb hospital (it's relatively well known), so I can tell you with confidence that the hospitals CAN absolutely pay $64K/year salary of residents on their own. It's just that they are cheap and do the bare minimum.

But yeah, AMA should stop requiring 8 years of education + 3 years of residency to become a garden-variety doctor. I can look up UpToDate, which most doctors and residents do, to diagnose and treat myself for most common illnesses IF I can purchase medication from pharmacy on my own.

[nradov]

The costs of employing a resident are a lot more than just salary, but as I noted above the numbers are kind of fuzzy. Certainly most teaching hospitals can take on a few more residents but would mean less money for a new MRI machine or administrator salaries or charity care or nice landscaping or whatever. So it's a matter of priorities. For better or worse, most organizations are always going to do the minimum.

There are a few colleges now offering accelerated 6 year MD degrees so hopefully that option will become more common. A lot of primary care is also being picked up by physician assistants who have less education.