Developments in Brief : Doctor Glut May Mean Higher Health Costs
A glut of physicians could bring about a drop in quality and a rise in the cost of health care in the United States, according to the nation’s largest organization of doctors.
A report by a task force of the American Medical Assn. held that as competition rises, doctors could find themselves no longer performing certain procedures often enough to maintain a high level of skill.
Among the solutions proposed at the AMA’s annual meeting recently were limiting the entry of foreign medical graduates and supporting the repeal of laws that keep enrollment high in U.S. medical schools.
The task force found the number of physicians had grown to 537,000 in 1984 from 292,000 in 1965.
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