Just as the government has paid farmers not to grow crops, it now pays hospitals not to train doctors.

Two years ago, Congress passed a law to pay $400 million in Medicare funds to teaching hospitals as an incentive to reduce the number of doctors they train by 20 to 25 percent during a six-year period.

To get this doctor prevention subsidy, hospital groups lobbied on behalf of this legislation that would decrease the number of doctors they trained.

Before this law was passed, hospitals received approximately $100,000 a year from the government through Medicare for each resident they trained.

Hospital administrators wanted to cut the number of training slots for specialists in the industry, so they decided to train 2,000 fewer residents during a five-year period. But this cutback would translate to less federal funding for training hospitals that are primarily located in New York.

The law’s passage ensured that hospitals in New York and a few other states will receive the same money from the government even though they teach fewer doctors.

This program amounts to a multimillion-dollar pork program for hospitals in states with powerful political ties.

As if hospital subsidies weren’t enough, now Sen. Daniel Moynihan (D-NY) has introduced a bill that would give medical schools and graduate medical teaching hospitals their own trust fund by hiking rates in taxes on health insurance.

The doctor prevention subsidy is a program that deserves to be axed. No business would ever pay $400 million for nothing and Congress shouldn’t either.