Financing health care -| Economist.com

The Economist has a writeup on British healthonomics.

This sounds much like the system that's under scrutiny by the Morris enquiry in Queensland where a regional hospital tried to perform difficult surgeries because they bring in more funds, despite the hospital being ill-equipped / ill-qualified to perform these tasks.

The following facts are related:
1) there aren't enough doctors,
2) there never enough places for people who want to study medicine.
3) ability to practice medicine is tightly regulated
4) healthcare is expensive

I read that in Hong Kong, (2) is getting worse because doctors are leaving university hospitals for the private sector.

Given that there is such an immediate crisis in the doctor-shortage, perhaps it's time for the government to start to actively seek to accredit overseas medical colleges, so that there is more freedom for doctors to move from one country to another.