my connection with the tea party

[Jester]

Sort of. It wouldn't have the same entrenched bureaucracy feeling since the participants would be temporary, and not permanent employees.

Temporary employees *increase* bureaucracy, they don't decrease it. Turnover is more work, not less, because hiring someone involves fixed costs, and a mess of paperwork.

I would look at it more like a government run temporary staffing organization (e.g. Accountemps), where instead of the workers being cost plus 10%, they would be cost minus 10%. Of course, the long term social goal would be more than just providing affordable care, it would be to increase the number of people in the profession to reduce the overall costs and bring physician salaries more in line with other similarly skilled professionals.

Why would doctors work there for cheaper? Civic duty? Doctors might be interested more than most, but then, they should already have factored that in to their choices of specialization. (Boob jobs, or family practice?) If they have debts to pay off, their goal would be revenue maximization, no?

But more importantly, how can you increase the number of physicians by hiring at lower than market wages? (Or, if you pay good wages, how can you reduce costs by paying out more money?)

I'm all for the idea. I just don't see where the savings are supposed to come from.

-Jester