OUR VIEW: Fewer doctors won't mean more health care (vote in poll)

You read it here long ago, but this week it’s front-page news around the country: We face a nationwide physician shortage, it’s going to get much worse and it could make the federal promise of more health care access impossible. That’s because fewer doctors result in less health care, not more, regardless of any bill the president signed.

Colorado must prepare for this by finding ways to attract physicians and nurses today. We should craft legislation that maximizes their freedom. We should maintain low tax obligations and do everything imaginable to free physicians to innovate and work in the best interests of patients. By doing so, Colorado could become the country’s oasis of health care excellence — a destination of freedom for physicians and people who cannot find care back home.

The new federal health care law will result in 32 million additional Americans owning health insurance. That means 32 million more Americans will rightfully feel entitled to consume health care with the same reckless abandon of the rich and those who have bought or earned insurance under our current system. Combined with the doctor shortage, this looming increase in consumers will provide a case study in the harsh realities of supply and demand economics — natural forces that are more powerful than government. The demand for service will increase, as the supply of service decreases. Regardless of any law, this equation will result in more rationing and higher prices for insurance and procedures. Government won’t be able to fix it, because government isn’t magic.

The physician shortage is getting worse for two primary reasons: 1. Smart young people know they can make good money in a high-tech culture without the burden of medical school and stressful work; 2. Aging baby boomers, increasingly in need of health care, did not produce enough children to provide for the needs of an aging society. When the supply of young people declines, relative to the supply of increasingly dependent elders, we can expect a shortage of people to work as doctors just as we can expect a shortage of people to fund Social Security and private pensions. It really is just that simple.

The Associated Press reports that various studies predict a shortfall of roughly 40,000 primary care physicians over the 10 years. A 2008 survey of 12,000 general practice doctors, conducted by the Physicians’ Foundation, found that 60 percent would not recommend medicine as a career. Seventy six percent said they already work at “full capacity” or are “overextended and overworked.” One of their primary complaints involves the low reimbursement and overwhelming bureaucracy involved with treating Medicare and Medicaid patients. It’s hard to believe more government-funded, government-regulated, government-mandated health insurance will improve their lot.

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Dr. Larry McEvoy, chief executive officer of Memorial Health Systems, told The Gazette on Tuesday that Colorado Springs must prepare for the physician shortage by attracting doctors and nurses to live and work here. It’s already an attractive environment, because of its mountainous beauty, desirable size and climate. But as health care providers become more scarce, the competition to attract and keep them will become fierce.

One factor in our favor, explained McEvoy, is that Colorado has long been an attractive relocation destination for Californians. Furthermore, California has become an undesirable environment for doctors because of the state’s insurmountable debt, its outrageous and growing tax burden and its troubled housing market.

Let’s brainstorm ways to make Colorado and Colorado Springs the least hostile, most attractive environment for physicians to work and live. One move in that direction would be to vote for the “Right to health care choice” amendment to the Colorado Constitution, which is likely to appear on the November ballot. The bill would protect anyone in Colorado from forced participation in a public or private health insurance plan. That would ensure physicians a base of customers who pay cash, freeing them from some of the burden of working only with heavily regulated public and private insurers. Additionally, Colorado and Colorado Springs should treat new hospitals, clinics and other medical endeavors with the same affection we treat prospective primary employers.

Federal promises of coverage are not the same as health care, which requires doctors and nurses. Let’s make sure Colorado and the Pikes Peak region get ahead of the curve in creating a well-known zone of freedom, in which health care and health care providers may thrive.

— Wayne Laugesen, editorial page editor, for the editorial board

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