Reducing the debt burden on doctors would not have as great an impact on overall health costs because of the way the system is structured. For instance, there is a wide disparity between what doctors make depending on what kind of treatment they provide. This has some correlation with how much training they must undertake post-residency, but it is not strictly tied to that. Additionally, the salaries are set across the board, with doctors in smaller cities making relatively the same salary as a counterpart practicing in a metropolitan area with a much greater cost of living (although they are sometimes compensated with housing subsidies if the costs are too outrageous). There is also little salary incentive when it comes to supply and demand. There are often a shortage of pediatric specialties because they are among the lowest paid physicians, often making far less than their adult medicine counterparts. In rural areas this can lead to higher costs as the county may have to chip in to offer a physician a sizable bonus to attract them to the area. But why does the correlation between DR salary, education level, and treatment population seem so caddywhompus?
Those salaries are based on billing. Meaning, the doctor's are paid based off of what they can bill for - in clinic visits, testing and lab work, surgery and procedures, etc... This effects the treatment decisions that your doctor makes, often running more tests than are required, and even sometimes recommending surgery when it may not 100% be required. More tests and more procedures means that you pay more overall and the doctor gets a cut for his services.
Here's a case I'm currently dealing with. My 3 y/o has severe allergies so we need to start immunotherapy. Our allergist offers an oral therapy option (which would be awesome, because - no shots - and we can do it at home instead of weekly office visits), but it's generally not covered my insurance, even though traditional immunotheraphy injections are covered. Why? Since we do administer the medication at home the doctor's can't bill for an office visit, so it hasn't been widely adopted as an allergy treatment in the U.S. However, it is quite commonly used in European countries where salaries are not tied to billing.
This model has all sorts of implications for how offices are run, how research is conducted and where health services are available.
So yes, you can lower the debt incurred by doctor's, but that isn't going to reduce healthcare costs. It is a structural flaw in the billing system that is the cause of inflated costs. Unless that is fixed, lowering the debt burden will only result in greater take home pay for the physicians.
