Weighing the Evidence for Expanding Physician Supply

View larger version (18K): [in a new window]   Figure 1. Annual percentage changes in private health expenditures and in gross domestic product (GDP) 4 years previously. Data on changes in GDP are from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (29). Data on changes in private health expenditures are from Altman and Levitt (27) and Strunk and Ginsberg (30, 31). This analysis was previously described by Cooper and Getzen (28).

View larger version (18K): [in a new window]   Figure 2. Physician supply and demand projections. Physician supply from 1980 to 2000 is from Pasko and Smart for the American Medical Association (65) and the American Osteopathic Association (66); supply projections are from a previous report (Cooper and colleagues) (9). Trend projections of demand are presented for Cooper and colleagues, 2002 (9); Cooper, 1995 (67); the Council on Graduate Medical Education (COGME), 2003 (corrected for gross domestic product and presumed unnecessary services) (12); the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), 1982–2002 (alternate years) (68); and Schwartz and colleagues, 1988 (69). Task-and-time projections of demand are presented for the Graduate Medical Education National Advisory Committee (GMENAC), 1981 (2); COGME, 1994 (5); the Bureau of Health Professions (BHPr), 1995 and 1996 (7, 8); and Weiner, 1994 (6). Projections of demand have been normalized by converting reported values to percentages and applying them to supply levels in the base year.