The Teaching of Future Doctors Doesn’t Necessarily Deserve Your Tax Dollars

August 22, 2014

(New York Times) – A cap on government funding of graduate medical education, instituted as part of the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, is being fingered as the culprit behind what could become a serious shortage of physicians in this country. Even The Wall Street Journal, typically no fan of increased government spending, published some op-eds calling for increased government funding of graduate medical education. The usual argument for public financing of a public good is that it can be shown that private markets would vastly undersupply such goods.