Reform and the Health Care Workforce — Current Capacity, Future Demand

As Democrats press to enact health care reform legislation, they have emphasized their commitment to greatly expanding coverage, slowing the growth of medical spending, and more tightly regulating private insurers, if not also creating a competing public insurance option. But among the major questions that their policy prescription leaves unanswered is, How would a health care workforce that many (though not all) observers agree is already inadequate in some regions and specialties provide medical care to an additional 30 million newly insured people? After all, early lessons from health care reform in Massachusetts include the recognition that, as Dr. Mario . . .