The advocacy for tort reform in Texas (2003) focused on the impact of malpractice liability actions on the availability of healthcare. Physicians were:
1. Relocating to less litigious parts of the state, or out of state.
2. Dropping higher-risk components of practice, e.g., family practitioners dropping OB coverage.
3. Limiting hours of availability to lessen the risk of exhaustion.
4. Raising prices to compensate for rising malpractice coverage rates.
5. Refusing poorly compensating patients (no-pay, Medicare, Medicaid).
The advocacy was sucessful (barely!). A $250K cap on non-economic damages was instituted. Now Texas welcomes several thousand doctors from other states without a worsening of outcomes.

Fascinating article about Dr. Money in Weekly Standard archives:

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/0 00/011/136eioki.asp

Thanks, Paleocon, for sharing my concerns.

I would extend my concern to any coercive actions by the federal government such as those you mention, but also a requirement as a condition of licensure that physicians must accept Medicare, Medicaid, or insurance pool patients, independent of cost-sustainability. Just as with other coercive actions (e.g., price-wage-rent controls), a brief successful honeymoon would be followed by the inexorable progression of shortages as labor and capital migrated elsewhere. Also the constitutionality question; states are less and less willing to surrender sovereignty, including the definition of medical practice.
Importing large numbers of foreign-trained physicians (to the degree they exist)...

When I practiced primary care (25 years ago), I found that although I made my money during the day, I "earned" it (paid my dues) by being available at night.
My concern regarding the appearance of strip-mall "doc-in-a-box": they would be skimming the cream. Effectively competing during the day (no appointment necessary, low overhead, no interruptions from runs to the hospital), but then going home to sleep while I'm up all night. Result: I work as many hours, but make less money. And I was already not making much money.
If the nurse practitioners Mr. Chapman describes restricted themselves to medically underserved areas, they would perhaps make a valuable contribution. But there is a tendency to follow the Willy Sutton rule: go...

The National Marriage Project studied negative attitudes toward marriage among young men in 2002 and 2004. Among the arguments given (2002) was fear of the catastrophic potential of divorce.
Among all young men (2004), 20% have severely negative attitudes about marriage. Disproportionately, these young men came from homes that had experienced divorce.
Why would a young man, having seen his own father disposed of, think that any other fate awaits him?
If we want young men to participate in marriage, we will have to convince them that they will be valued. Universal presumptive joint managing conservatorship would be a good start.

David Blankenhorn wrote "Fatherless America" back in the '90's. Not only did he describe the physical father absence associated with illegitimacy and divorce, he also described our societal confusion with the role we expect our husbands/fathers to take. We have created a society in which a female child has a much greater likelihood than a male child of growing up with the presence of a same-sex parent as role model and guide.
The current situation was predicted by Daniel Patrick Moynihan: "From the wild Irish slums of the 19th century Eastern seaboard, to the riot-torn suburbs of Los Angeles, there is one unmistakable lesson in American history; a community that allows a large number of men to grow up in broken families, dominated by...