@Tex Pete I encourage both of you to dig just ONE millimeter deeper on the problem. Yes, nursing salaries are going up. That isn't the problem.
Complaining about nurses salaries is problem #1, especially now, when thousands of nurses have died from on the exposure caring while they were caring for people.Early in 2020, in NYC, is a particularly instructive example of why you either pay for nursing or people die. Staff shortages, among other shortages, wrecked NYC hospitals. This is why death rates (case fatality rates) specifically in NYC at that time are higher than at any other point in the pandemic. And your care suffered whether you had the infection or not because there wasn't staffing for other standard services because those services were redirected for care of infected people.
Problem #2 is that hospitals in the NE didn't lose money during 2020 and 2021 because Federal funds bailed them out so that's how we all pay for it. Ask your wife's boss. And nursing salaries in the NE cities, relative to cost of living are worse than other parts of the country at baseline. Ask you wife's boss about these staff. And why was it a necessity that hospitals make money specifically in during this time when other industries didn't? Hospital closures have accelerated with with increasing corporate ownership in the space. It's because of thinking about shareholders, not patients.
When you're sick you'd gladly pay for someone to care for you. Hopefully there are nurses trained and available to do this. Paying them for their board skills, now in a time when they risk illness and death, is the least we can do.