America Is Running Out of Everything The global supply chain is slowing down at the very moment when Americans are demanding that it go into overdrive. By Derek Thompson

  • SteamedHamberder [he/him]
    ·
    3 years ago

    The only instance I'm aware of "supply side" solution to health care is Cuba though. They've deliberately oversupplied the market with Doctors, and send their surplus overseas. The problem with health care is for every supply, there is a requirement for some type of skilled professional to either QC the product or interpret the result. Even with the examples of at-home COVID tests and prescriptions- there's a shortage of Pharmacists, Pharm techs, and production techs.

    • steve5487 [none/use name]
      ·
      3 years ago

      there’s a shortage of Pharmacists

      I might just be ignorant here but doesn't a pharmacist get something off a shelf

      • TrudeauCastroson [he/him]
        ·
        edit-2
        3 years ago

        Pharmacy techs are the ones who get stuff off shelves and who usually hand you drugs which is a 3 year diploma. They also do other stuff but are overseen by a pharmacist.

        Pharmacists need to know more about drug interactions than doctors do and usually a pharmacy only has one or two pharmacists total, who usually own the pharmacy but sometimes don't. Which is some sort of undergrad plus 4 years of pharmacist school that you test into like law or medical school.

        It's like how nurses do most of the medical stuff at hospitals but you still need doctors.

        • D3FNC [any]
          ·
          3 years ago

          It's incredible how almost everything in this post is wrong. It's a four year degree, you'd have to go back a century for pharmacists to own their own pharmacies, nurses do nursing, not "medical stuff" - and most of this has to do with legal liability for malpractice.

          Doctors and pharmacists have professional degrees and are held liable for mistakes. Nurses and pharmacy techs are held to a dramatically lower standard, usually they only get fired unless they're stealing drugs.

        • BruceWillis [none/use name]
          ·
          edit-2
          3 years ago

          the insane amount of schooling and barriers to entry are as much about weeding out people who will steal/abuse the powerful drugs they have access to by making it a hard to get and therefore a high paying job.

        • steve5487 [none/use name]
          ·
          3 years ago

          Oh OK I did think that the fact there were exams meant there was more to it than grabbing something behind you