MDs have years of schooling through accredited institutions behind them, easily verifiable. There is nothing similar for software engineers - there is no standard curriculum, the average curriculum has little to do with what you do day-to-day.
the same goes for computer scientists. the standard curriculum is computer science, and if you have a real software engineering job, you will be using what you learned in your CS program on a daily basis. if you went through a reputable university, you will have worked pretty hard to earn your degree.
That goes for a very limited subset of jobs. For the most part you are going to be designing some systems which push data through some queues, not deciding whether languages are context-free, writing parser generators or proofs of complexity of the given piece of code. There is a real disconnect between what's needed on the job vs what is being taught.
the reason people make arguments like what you just wrote is so cheaper labor can be hired, and does not need to be compensated for prior education.
that is the real problem of our industry. it’s still a very young one with no unions or professional organisations that protect the interests of those working in it. law, medicine, construction etc all have solved these problems.
