If programmers can cost $200 per hour, clearly we need a large supply to meet such a demand. Programming is not a high level skill, compared to, say, a pharmacist, chemical engineer, scientist or a EE. That they command such high hourly fees means that the skills are scarce, not that they are high. If so, the IT industry is right to lobby for more workers.
That’s for top tier consulting firm fees. You can hire a programmer, permanent or as a contractor, for far far less.
They don't. For bulk code one offshores at $25/hr.
$200/hr is for CCIE, Security, Data Architects, SAN Engineers etc.
The good one's in that class of worker have invested as much time and learning as any MS at MIT.
And they actually know how to do something.