A physician late (in life) and a job short.

We’ve all heard it: a primary care physician (PCP) shortage is looming. This ominous forecast gained lightning bolts from Affordable Care Act (ACA) critics warning of ballooning demand (with its recognized goal of providing universal coverage combined with an aging patient population) amidst a waning supply (with dwindling PCP recruitment due to diminished reimbursements combined with an aging workforce). An interesting JAMA viewpoint challenges this gloomy prediction by drawing from recent real-word examples of Medicaid expansions (i.e., ACA microcosms) and spelling out simple formulas of the supply and demand economics at hand. It turns out, while physicians may be aging, they certainly are not retiring. And dramatically increasing medical school admissions (by over a quarter in the last decade!) is going to directly affect neither the PCP workforce nor what we really care about--wait times. So what does all this mean? No one really knows, but we'd all be smart to remember our Econ 101 class: the further we move a market from its equilibrium, the further we move it from economic efficiency. And that's not a move we want to make.