For the last five years, attempts to reform America’s health care system have focused primarily on the demand side of the market, and specifically on the market for insurance. Yet, these reforms have not achieved significant improvements in health care outcomes, nor reductions in cost. As health care specialist John C. Goodman has pointed out in Forbes, the slowed growth of health care spending in the United States is a trend that correlates most closely with supply side reforms such as the availability of health savings accounts. Reductions in spending or costs are certainly not an effect of the Affordable Care Act.
One of the most critical supply side issues in health care is the supply of qualified doctors. The Wall Street Journal has reported that the number of doctors per capita is in decline for the first time in two generations, and the American Association of Medical Colleges has predicted a shortage of 45,000 primary care physicians and 46,000 specialists by 2020.
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