A Couple of Quick Health Care Questions

I haven't heard or read anyone, other than me, talk about increasing the supply of health care workers, including doctors, to help lower health care costs and increase health care availability. Which leads me to this question: If one of the main goals of this effort is to insure the 45 million uninsured, and to move people away from emergency room care to preventative and primary care physicians-- do we have enough doctors?

Here on Long Island we have probably the lowest doctor-to-patient ratio in the country. Yet most times we have to wait for appointments and sit in the waiting room, sometimes for hours. I know doctors who are turning patients away. Doctors all claim to be overworked.

I assume the situation is the same, or worse, around the country.

If 45 million people show up next year for an annual physical, who is going to treat them?

Why aren't we addressing the supply portion of this equation?

2) The key problems I keep hearing are people being denied coverage for preexisting conditions; being booted from their plans for being sick; and lack of portability.

Can't those problems be addressed without a massive federal program? Haven't many states done so?

If the goal is to make health care better, and not let more power settle in Washington, aren't there better ways to go than the bill(s) presently in the House & Senate?