I can only speak for Canada and the U.K.
Canada used to have a pretty fast and efficient system for immigrants with nursing degrees, preferably those under 40. Point-based system. No employer sponsorship required. The whole family can come.
I know many families with nurse moms who immigrated from Asia and to a lesser extent, Eastern Europe, from the 60s through the 80s. As cheap as Canadian undergrad tuition was, those grads were already trained with zero debt and took on most of the less desirable nursing jobs. I don’t know if that is still the case.
The UK also imports large numbers of nurses.
As to why the cost is different, that isn’t this forum but a few factors are:
- savings from having nationalized healthcare - cheaper drugs, US bears the brunt of R&D and the commensurate recouping of those costs.
- more effective gatekeeping by MDs to specialists. I don’t (knock wood) have any major health problems but I see 5 specialists! Middle aged sports injury - ortho. Don’t love my cholesterol numbers - cardiologist. And various others for unrealized problems. So that doesn’t happen in Canada. No kid sees a pediatrician unless they suffered some serious malady when younger or were born prematurely or some X factor.
The rumor is that they’ve even curtailed physicals now because evidence shows that they are useless in moving the needle on results. - evidence-based medicine.
- larger proportion of the population are immigrants. Immigrants are healthier than native-born Canadians.