Some ObamaCare proponents have claimed that the Mackinac Center's YouTube videos documenting the human cost of Canadian doctor shortages are off base, because the bills in Congress don't create the same system as Canada's. They are both right and wrong - the bills would create a system different in its details, but one with the same dysfunctions, generated by reproducing here the same skewed incentives.

Allyssia Finley spells out the details in today's Wall Street Journal, "Obama's Doctor Shortage":

By drastically increasing demand while doing little to increase primary care physician supply, ObamaCare will turn health care into a consumer nightmare: longer wait times, shorter visits, higher prices, and decreased customer satisfaction. The U.S. will have to rely increasingly on nurse practitioners and physician assistants to meet patient demand. According to the WHO, the nurse-to-physician ratio in Canada and the U.K. are 5.3 and 5.6, respectively, compared to 3.6 in the U.S. And as fewer bright young people pursue medicine due to the profession's general malaise and oppressive bureaucratic regulations, we're likely to see an even greater physician shortage---not just in primary care, but in specialty care as well.

See "Canadian Doctor Lotteries," one of the brief segments in the Mackinac Center's video series.

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