Opinion: Systemic change to breed the doctors we need

Last month, The New York Times reported that President Obama's Affordable Care Act will worsen America's already steep shortage of doctors, particularly in the valuable field of primary care. With an estimated 30 million people set to gain insurance coverage under the law in 2014, there won't be enough physicians to serve all these new patients. Because it takes about ten years to train a new doctor, little can be done to reduce this deficit in the short term. But Congress can begin to address the problem in the coming decades if it alters its investment strategy in medical education.