Affordable Care Act Problem : Doctor Shortage

Allowing anyone with a license, real or fraudulent, to provide care is not only unwise as this will lead to criminal intervention into the health field, this will lead to a complete collapse of the hearth care system. Trust will be lost in who will be able to provide our health care. This is insane.

Just because someone put up a sign on their porch saying they are qualified, and on their wall is a diploma saying they having the needed training means nothing. All they need is a good scanner and printer and walah, they are a professional health care provider. What department of the California nightmare will know who is doing what across the state?

I wonder who will take the reasonability for the first death from this insanity? I can understand this happening in California as that state is headed for the ash heap anyway, but some other states that are trying to figure out how to comply with the ACA demands instead of taking control of the health care problem on their own, will find themselves going broke if they aren't already broke.

Why would any state believe the federal government will provide funds to support millions of new patients in the ACA when the feds are broke. It won't happen. If the states don't figure out how to do this on their own as many have, they will be crushed under the weight of huge new costs for the expanded care.

 Who voted for this last November? Who are these people? Are they completely unaware of our slide into progressive socialism and the disintegration of the American dream?

States Seek to Redefine Who Can Provide Care
February 14, 2013
Source: Michael Mishak, "State Lacks Doctors to Meet Demand of National Health Care Law," Los Angeles Times, February 9, 2013.

As states expand health care coverage as mandated by the Affordable Care Act (ACA), they are likely to experience a shortage of doctors in attempts to treat an influx of newly insured patients. States are taking various measures to solve this problem, says the Los Angeles Times.
Take California, where state Senator Ed Hernandez says there will not be enough doctors to treat new patients.

• Sen. Hernandez has made proposals that seek to redefine who can provide coverage.
• The new proposal would allow physician assistants to treat more patients, nurse practitioners to set up independent practices and pharmacists, and optometrists to act as primary care providers.
• Hernandez's proposed changes would shake up the medical establishment in California and could affect the success of the ACA in California.

The National Conference of State Legislatures says that since January 1, more than 50 proposals have been launched in 24 states that alter what health professionals are licensed to do.  The new proposals join the more than 350 laws that have already been enacted in the last two years.

• Just 16 of California's 58 counties have the federal government's recommended supply of primary care physicians, with more than 30 percent of the state's doctors nearing retirement.
• It takes more than a decade to train a physician and the pace of expected graduates will not keep up with the expansion in patients needing care.
• Doctors say physician assistants and other midlevel professionals are best deployed in doctor-led teams and that allowing these health workers to set up independent agencies would create voids in the clinics, hospitals and offices that they currently work in.

Whether or not these midlevel professionals are granted new responsibilities that are within their training, the fundamental problem of not having enough doctors to treat the growing number of patients in the U.S. health care system still exists.