"You cannot have cheap care and gold priced training."
People say "we need more doctors and nurses". Then they look away while medical and nursing schools charge luxury resort prices.
In the current system a new doctor often leaves school with two hundred thousand dollars or more in debt. Nurses and other health workers carry heavy debts as well. Primary care and rural jobs usually pay less than cosmetic specialties in rich cities. So we build a pipeline that pushes people away from the work we need most.
The SAFECARE Plan treats this as infrastructure failure, not individual greed.
First: Cap the Tuition
We cap tuition in programs that feed the health system. Any school that wants federal research money, student loans or SAFECARE clinical payments must accept strict tuition caps. For example, Medical degrees capped at roughly fifteen thousand dollars per year. Nursing and core allied health degrees capped at roughly ten thousand dollars per year. If a school wants to charge eighty thousand dollars per year, it can. It simply loses access to public funding and SAFECARE payments. In practice very few will choose that path.
Coverage: Second, Trade Education for Service
We trade education for service. Future students can get grants that cover all or most tuition in exchange for five to seven years of work in priority roles. That means primary care, rural practice and high need specialties like psychiatry and geriatrics.
Third: Help Those Already Stuck
We help the people already stuck with giant loans. A Workforce Relief Program forgives a fixed chunk of education debt for every year of full time SAFECARE service. For example twenty to forty thousand dollars per year until the balance is gone.
The Real World Impact
Now imagine a student from a small town. Under the old system she graduates with a mountain of debt and takes a cosmetic job in a wealthy suburb. Under the new system she can train without that mountain and return home as a family doctor without financial suicide.
Summary: Bottom Line
This is not charity for professionals. It is payment for essential skills. We already subsidize pilots, soldiers and infrastructure. Health workers are part of the same backbone. If we want them, we have to stop charging them a ransom to join us.