Obamacare is expected to increase patient demand for medical services.
Combine that with a worsening shortage of doctors, and next year you may have to wait a little longer to get a doctor's appointment.
And the crowded emergency room may become even more so.
This coming flood of newly insured patients may crash the U.S. health care system.
There is already a national shortage of doctors, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges.
We're down about 20,000 now, and the number is expected to get worse as nearly half the nation's physicians are over age 50 -- meaning many are at or near retirement age.
And it's not just doctors who are in short supply; we also need more nurses, according to the American Medical Association.
A study in the Annals of Family Medicine journal projected the country will need 52,000 more primary care physicians by 2025.
But the problem also begins in training; only one in five graduating medical residents plan to go into primary care, according to the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Primary care is the backbone of our medical system, but most people in medical school can't afford to go that route. Doctors on average graduate with hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt. Specialists make more money.
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/10/02/health/obamacare-doctor-shortage/