I can't believe I'm posting a link to this site...

(so fair warning that if you click on the link, you'll be giving a hit to Hot Air), but I was surfing along from a previous URL posted here and actually found the reporting interesting, in my contrarian interpretation of it, especially about California's implementation of the ACA, and thought it might be enlightening to get other medical health professionals here take on it.  

Me, personally, I love PAs and FNPs for my own care.  They spend more time, are usually more holistic, etc.  And are better dictators on average* (mind, I said "on average"), in my experience, which speaks to me about the kind and type of health care they do.   Don't know about the pharmacist and optometrist thing listed in the article, will have to confirm that later.  Anyway, if you need surgery, get referred to a surgeon.  If you need some more TLC for less serious issues, then I think a PA or an FNP are awesome for that.  And they have always had the sense, in my personal experience, to know when to refer you on to a different level of practitioner, if needed.  An unexpected consequence of the possible healthcare provider shortage about to occur is perhaps a redefining of the medical heirarchy in America and the way medicine is practiced here, which I actually think could likely only be an improvement.  

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Here’s one of those “growing pains” Sebelius mentioned — currently going on in California, the first state to rush headlong into ObamaCare’s loving arms:

(Other links and better info about the same issue are greatly welcomed and encouraged, of course.  I'm being tired and lazy tonight, one of my nights off from trying to make sense of overpaid yahoos.)

*I realized in retrospect that's probably mainly because a much smaller percentage of them are ESL (have I ever edited/transcribed any PAs/NPs who are ESL?).  So that doesn't necessarily predicate better health care expertise on their part in general, but it rather does, for me, in terms of having a practitioner that  I can much more easily communicate with.  Personal bias admitted.