Are there enough doctors for newly insured?

The article can be found here.

   This article talks about how thousands of Americans gained coverage on January 1st but many live in areas with too few primary care doctors and many of those doctors and dentists do not accept Medicaid patients. A big contributor to these shortages are the aging baby boomers. The growing medical needs of that large age group are creating a huge burden for the existing health care workforce and the retiring of many doctors from the baby boomer generation add to the problem. Another contributor is that medical students now value a "work-life" balance. And men and women alike are looking for careers that are compatible with part-time hours so that they can be more engaged in child care. Additionally, all the negative attention on medicine in general has made it a far less attractive career choice than it once was. But despite the shortages, many believe that new technologies will extend the reach of medicine in ways that will help the problem.

   To start, with the passing of the ACA I think that these doctors and dentists should be required by law to accept Medicaid patients. Primary care is a basic need and Medicaid should be enough of a qualification to receive that. I think that the introduction of new technologies can definitely help with this shortage of doctors. New technologies introduce new specialties to the medical field, more chance of successful procedures, and more incentive to pursue a medical career. These next few years may still be rough, but I think that now there is a higher demand for doctors, it will become an appealing career path again and things will take an upward turn soon enough.