[tyre]

One interesting firestorm that he started was over doctors.

Yoon Suk Yeol did the basic math of “if our population isn’t having babies and people are getting older, how much medical capacity will we need?”

The results—due to artificial caps on medical students (like the AMA does in the US)—mathed out to: “oh, shit.”

He decided to raise the caps by a lot. The medical establishment freaked out, since that would lower salaries, and went on strike. Doctors, residents, and medical students didn’t show up for months. He had to call in doctors from the army to fill in.

Was a hostile takeover and subversion the right response to frustration over political obstacles? No. But he ran into some very real and frustrating realities (or collective refusal to admit to them.)

Not sure he needed to table-flip into full autocrat, though.

[yongjik]

I can't believe I'm defending Yoon, but this was one issue where Yoon identified the correct problem, and all those doctors were clearly in the wrong. But because there are so few doctors, things like emergency rooms were always overfull, and doctors who worked there were always overworked, and when they said no there was nothing the rest of the country could do. So the doctors basically had the rest of the country by its balls, so to speak.

It will forever grate me that those assholes of Korean Medical Association could say "You see how hard we're working for all of you guys? That's why there should be no more doctors!" with a straight face and will never face any consequences for that.

(Of course, it didn't help Yoon that he attacked this problem with the finesse of a bulldozer, with disastrous consequences. But still.)

[agentifysh]

Just wanted to add some context on this in case someone reads this thread down the road. I know many doctors from Korea, and their take on it was that Yoon's populist policy to increase caps on medical students wouldn't fix the actual issue at hand, which is that nobody wants to work in a low-paid, highly stressful environment. Unfortunately, those happen to be the exact fields of medicine that are lacking in doctors.

In fact, what they warned would happen is that it would just increase the number of new graduates heading towards highly lucrative, unregulated medical fields like dermatology and cosmetic surgery, and would only exacerbate the gaps in essential areas like pediatrics, OB/GYN, and emergency medicine, which face real shortages.

The root of the problem is twofold: First, South Korea's National Health Insurance heavily regulates and caps the prices for essential and lifesaving care, sometimes setting reimbursement rates so low that hospitals lose money on them. Meanwhile, non essential aesthetic procedures have no price caps.

Second, South Korea has an unusually high rate of prosecuting doctors criminally for medical malpractice. Doctors in high stakes environments like the ER or surgery face massive legal risks and the threat of actual prison time for unavoidable bad outcomes. Conversely, opening a skin clinic carries almost zero legal risk, no night shifts, and much higher pay.

The doctors' frustration was that Yoon's policy relied on a trickle down theory of medicine, the idea that if you simply flood the market by increasing the quota by a massive 65% overnight, the overflow of graduates will eventually be desperate enough to take the punishing essential jobs. While the medical association's optics and PR were undeniably terrible, their core grievance was that Yoon's draconian approach was a political bandaid that completely ignored the structural rot driving doctors away from saving lives in the first place

[deepsun]

Yep, and similar thing went in Philippines. The craziest part is that public in general sided with doctors, and against their president on that issue. Even though public would certainly benefit from having more doctors.

[nickff]

The public does not act in its self interest; Bryan Caplan explained this clearly in "The Myth of the Rational Voter": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Myth_of_the_Rational_Voter

[expedition32]

Dutch politicians run into chaos every day yet none of them go nuts- everyone hating everyone is just another Thursday. If you can't handle that don't become a politician.