Enlarge Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images Dr. Niraj Desai orients a suture while he sews in a kidney to a recipient patient during a kidney transplant at Johns Hopkins Hospital on June 26 in Baltimore, Maryland. Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images Dr. Niraj Desai orients a suture while he sews in a kidney to a recipient patient during a kidney transplant at Johns Hopkins Hospital on June 26 in Baltimore, Maryland. Read An Article About Federalizing Medicaid Read An Article About Who Suffers Most If States Don’t Expand Medicaid Coverage Eli Lehrer is president of R Street. In discussions of America’s high health care costs, surprisingly little attention is paid to salaries and wages. Yet the fact that medical jobs simply pay more than those in other sectors is beyond dispute. A physician practicing in a primary care setting, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, earned an average of just over $200,000 in 2010, while spec Read more text

The Los Angeles Times reports that a growing number of California physicians are turning toward this type of practice. Los Angeles Times: Annual Retainer Fee Buys Patients More Time With Their Doctors Frustrated with a changing health care system that has resulted in longer work days and less time with patients, a growing number of doctors in California and across the nation are turning to a new type of practice – concierge medicine (Gorman, 7/29). Meanwhile, other news outlets report on various workforce issues, including the physician shortage; nurse burnout; and the possibility that the health law may trigger a boom in health jobs.   The New York Times: Doctor Shortage Likely To Worsen With Health Law The Association of American Medical Colleges estimates that in 2015 the country will have 62,900 fewer doctors than needed. And that number will more than double by 2025, as the expansion of insurance coverage and the aging of baby boomers drive up demand for care. Even without the health care law, the shortfall of doctors in 2025 would still exceed 100,000. Health experts, including many who support the law, say there is little that the government or the medical profess Read more text