Nursing Shortage (continued)

If there is an increase in the demand for nurses, then the wages for nurses should increase in the short-term.  Higher wages attract more professionals to enter the profession.  As supply catches up with the demand, then wages stabilize.  That's Economics 101.  

So why, at least domestically, isn't the supply of nurses sufficiently increasing?  The consensus is that there are not enough nursing instructors, and promising students (over 50,000 people according to some reports) are turned away and not able to reach their full potential.  Why an inadequate number of nursing instructors?  The job does not pay well, so they pursue other jobs.  How can this be? Shouldn't the nursing shortage drive up wages for instructors?  At the very least, wouldn't "we the people"  have a vested interest in adequately subsidizing, at least in part, the training of nurses?  And what about the healthcare industry...they couldn't win sufficient subsidies from Congress?

So...does it make sense for hospitals in America to spend a significant amount of time and money (attorney) to navigate the sometimes complicated H1B visa system (and other temporary foreign workers programs) to import labor from other countries?  No...which is the reason for push by the healthcare industry for The Nursing Relief Act of 2009, to make it easier to import well-qualified trained nurses.  According to some estimates, temporary foreign workers currently represent 3% of nurses in the Northeast and up to 15% of nurses in the Southwest and on the West Coast.  This is not exactly a flood of temporary foreign workers. 

...But proposed Nursing Relief Act of 2009 would only be a short-term fix, and if the federal and state governments do not adequately address future projected nursing shortages in this country by supporting domestic nursing programs now, then by 2020, not even the most liberal foreign workers policy will be able to fill the employment gap.

(I wonder how Italy is handling the situation....they have a huge aging population.) 

Watch this video on the nursing shortage problem: