BillLawrenceOnline

Hire American Doctors Please

By Kevin Lynn

Outsourcing U.S. jobs to foreign markets followed by replacing local workers with foreign laborers has been the reality of the U.S. labor market for almost two decades.

Manufacturing was the start of outsourcing, and then employers moved on to back-room corporate operations such as credit card processing and call centers for customer service. This was followed by importation of workers from around the world for jobs in accounting, tech – and all the STEM fields – and health care. Still, some will be surprised to learn that even physicians have been negatively impacted by the importation of foreign labor.

Each year, hundreds of American graduates of medical schools do not match to hospital residencies. Under the current medical system, doctors who do not complete a residency cannot practice as doctors. While these doctors can reapply in successive years for resident positions, the chances of matching to a residency diminish as more years pass.

After a tremendous commitment to education of at least 20 years – that’s 12 years of public school followed by eight years of higher education – that doctors are shut out of their profession is mind-boggling. These are doctors too who are likely to have incurred hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt to obtain their medical degree. After completing a residency, an average doctor’s salary (primary care physician – family medicine, internal medicine, pediatrics and psychiatry) is approximately $10,000 a month (higher for specialty fields), but without this salary, it’s impossible to service the huge debt load.

Even though they are highly educated, doctors cannot just readily choose another professional field. They have very specific training that doesn’t lend itself to other careers, and they may be seen as overqualified for many positions. As well, alternate careers may require more education, which a doctor already carrying perhaps half a million dollars in debt might be reluctant to grow further. Even if one were to go this route, for instance, to obtain teaching credentials, the typical teacher’s pay would be insufficient to cover the debt load – and live!

It’s a baffling situation, certainly given how much attention has been given to a reported doctor shortage in the United States that’s expected to get worse, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges, which estimates a physician shortfall of between 35,000 to 88,000 by 2025. If there’s such a shortage, it’s difficult to understand how this year 1,927 U.S. medical school seniors and previous U.S. medical school graduates did not matriculate into residency training, according to the National Resident Matching Program, a nonprofit organization which matches the preferences of medical students to U.S. residency positions.

Further perplexing in the face of U.S. citizen doctors going unemployed is that at the same time, for years, non-U.S. citizen international medical graduates have filled U.S. residencies. Roughly 12 percent of the 30,000 residency positions in a year are given to foreign doctors.

For 2014 to 2018, non-U.S. citizen students/graduates of international medical schools who were given residency averaged 3,763 each year. For the same period, the number of U.S. medical school seniors and previous U.S. medical school graduates who did not obtain a residency averaged 1,894 each year.

Based on the math above, simply prioritizing American citizens who’ve graduated from medical school would ensure they all are placed into residencies, while still leaving slots for foreign doctors.

Many American citizens committed to a grueling, competitive education, expending significant resources of time and money, in order to become physicians. The country too made an investment in these future doctors through years of public education and the extension of loans. To not prioritize U.S. citizen medical school graduates over foreign doctors is a huge malinvestment that makes no sense.

Kevin Lynn is the is the Executive Director for Progressives for Immigration Reform and the founder of Doctors without Jobs.

Hire American Doctors Please

Lou Barletta Makes Jobs Priority

By Joe Guzzardi

On Election Day, Pennsylvanians will face an important moment of truth in the race for U.S. Senate. Voters will choose between the ineffectual two-term Democratic incumbent Bob Casey or his Republican U.S. House of Representatives challenger, four-term Lou Barletta.

Campaigns for high office feature embellished achievements and lofty promises for what the candidates will accomplish for their constituents. Forget the bluster. Look instead at the congressional voting records of Casey and Barletta. They reveal everything that Pennsylvanians need to know, the bad for Casey; the good for Barletta.

Casey portrays himself as a defender of American workers. But his voting pattern consistently proves that Casey has no interest in American workers’ well-being, but instead prefers to replace hard-working Americans with overseas workers via various employment-based visas, and amnesties that would provide the recipients with employment authorization documents. Visa holders and amnestied immigrants can then enter the U.S. labor market and compete head-to-head in a tough job environment with American citizens.

This year, Casey voted in favor of two separate amendments – one introduced by Senators Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Susan Collins (R-ME), Mike Rounds (R-SD) and Angus King (I-ME), and the second by Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Chris Coons (D-DE) – that would have granted amnesties to millions of illegally present immigrants.

In 2015, 2017 and again this year, Casey voted to increase the H-2B guest worker totals. The H-2B is a nonagriculture, temporary visa designed for seasonal employers and is used in landscaping, the leisure industry and other businesses for jobs that American teens and college students historically sought out to earn college tuition money.

On border and interior enforcement, Casey has a poor record. In 2015, during the unprecedented Central American border surge, Casey voted against an amendment that called for the expedited removal of Salvadoran, Guatemalan and Honduran aliens who are now, presumably, living in the U.S. interior and unlikely ever to go home. Casey also voted against fellow Pennsylvania Senator Pat Toomey’s bill to defund sanctuary cities, municipalities that refuse to cooperate with Immigration and Customs officials, and instead release convicted criminal aliens back into local communities.

Compare Casey’s disappointing record on subverting American workers, leaving America’s border and interior vulnerable, and endorsing the release of violent criminal aliens to Barletta’s.

During the current Congress, Barletta voted four times to mandate E-Verify, the federal program that ensures every new employee is legally authorized to work in the U.S. Barletta cosponsored four bills, and voted in favor of two other bills, that would have defunded sanctuary cities.

Moreover, Barletta cosponsored legislation that would reduce amnesties, control border surges, end asylum fraud and close loopholes in asylum claims. Asylum fraud is a grave concern to the U.S. Government Accountability Office. Importantly, after asylees win their case or 180 days pass without a decision, they automatically become work authorized.

As for which candidate is the tougher fighter, remember that in 2006, as Hazleton’s mayor, Barletta stood up to the ACLU and the Puerto Rican Legal Defense fund when they challenged his Illegal Immigration Relief Act that allowed the city to deny business permits to employers who hire illegal immigrants and gave the city authority to fine landlords up to $1,000 for renting to illegal immigrants.

A Federal District Court, and then a U.S. Appeals court, ruled against Barletta, shameless judicial activism run amok. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court did not take up the case, and Hazelton had to reimburse the ACLU $1.4 million, despite that aiding and abetting illegal immigrants – hiring and providing shelter to them – is a federal felony.

On Nov. 6, American voters will decide whether to reward obstructionist, expansionist, ultra-liberals like Casey with another undeserved six years or send pro-U.S. worker, pro-American values candidates like Barletta to the U.S. Senate. The nation’s future hangs in the balance.

Joe Guzzardi is a nationally syndicated, Pittsburgh-based columnist who has written about government for more than 30 years. Contact Joe at guzzjoe@yahoo.com.