“With a looming shortage of primary care doctors, 28 states are considering expanding the authority of nurse practitioners,” reports the Associated Press. While this is exactly the kind of story that Republicans will tout as evidence that ObamaCare is destroying America, it’s actually the kind of story market lovers should applaud. One doesn’t need “four years in undergraduate school, four years in medical school and an additional three in primary care residency training”–the quantity of expensive schooling required to write “MD” after your name/join the American Medical Association’s rent-seeking cartel–to set a broken bone, vaccinate a toddler, or prescribe ringworm ointment (don’t itch it!). That’s right: Specialization and fewer years in school equal less money spent at the doctor’s office.
The bad news? According to the AP, Congress missed the point entirely. “The health care overhaul law gave nurse midwives, a type of advanced practice nurse, a Medicare raise to 100 percent of what obstetrician-gynecologists make — and that may be just the beginning.”