Need more doctors

Your May 6 editorial does not cite proven Affordable Care Act gains. We do not know if a net gain in the number of insured people has occurred, as many people lost insurance due to ACA mandates and costs.

The government likely will meet the problems of high medical care costs using the following strategies: reimbursement for all doctors will be reduced, with specialists taking the greatest cuts; and support for specialty training will be drastically reduced. The federal government probably will pass a law limiting what percentage of graduating doctors may enter specialty fields; that way hospitals and universities cannot fund specialty training on their own. To meet the burgeoning demand for care, we will see nurses and physician assistants licensed to provide care independent of physician oversight.

To some extent, this is done already. Citing numbers for medicine as practiced 50 years ago is illogical. Do we really want to be without MRI scanners in order to have more primary care doctors and fewer radiologists? Consider heart and kidney transplants. We need doctors to meet the many advances in medicine. For free? No.

Edward Parker Jr., MD

Spokane