>"We have devalued the work of what a primary care physician does," he said... Epperly, of the American Academy of Family Physicians, said primary care doctors need a 30 percent pay increase.
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>And there you have it. The current system has devalued primary practitioners, leading to a shortage. As the population ages and uninsured people join, the shortage will become extreme unless these sorts of imbalances are resolved. Blaming Obama may be easy, but it won't solve the problems.
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>FWIW, this is a problem faced in every first world nation and not only because populations are aging but because "the market" with our cheerful acquiescence has devalued physicians. Eventually they behaved as the market dictated and started to become lawyers or bankers, causing dissatisfaction that the vocation of medicine seems to be disappearing. What a surprise. As I keep saying, the correct response is to pay physicians very well and separate orders and procedures from their reimbursement.The sort of person who wants to be a doctor in the US would cheerfully work weekends and long hours if they didn't have to fret and watch kids who did worse at school creaming it while the physician never catches up financially unless they can order prolifically and take a cut. That's a recipe for a terrible result if ever I saw one.

You expressed it much better than I did.