> Tulsa has run out of ICU beds.
So now we're in agreement. The sky is not falling, and Tulsa may have a local logistical challenge. Nothing to see here.
> Because they know their patients will die if they don't perform.
It's presumptuous to speak to what others know. All I know is that they weighed the alternatives for themselves and chose to willingly go to work instead of doing all the other things that they could have done instead.
> Its easy to build a training program when you have a $700 Billion/year budget.
Are you arguing that only a $700B/yr organization can train people to do the simple tasks that a soldier learns to do? The field manuals and training materials are all available, you can look and see for yourself that there is no secret super 700 billion dollar teaching method being used. As important as they are, these skills are not uniquely difficult to teach nor to learn. (Nevermind the fact that last year the federal government spent over a trillion dollars on healthcare, and the private sector spent even more than that, so if there is some special budgetary threshold that must be passed before workers can be effectively trained, I think we passed it a long time ago.)
> Americans won't accept raising their taxes to pay for such a thing.
Right, because we don't just assume that the solution to every problem must come from the government. There is absolutely nothing preventing hospitals from training new workers to change bedpans and insert catheters via on the job training. Well, nothing except for all the government regulations, but as they say "nobody gets a speeding ticket at the indy 500". They could do it and it would be fine.