"ObamaCare 2016: Happy Yet?/The website problems were finally solved. But the doctor shortage is a nightmare."

An interesting WSJ column by Bradley Allen, a pediatric heart surgeon, painting a nightmare scenario that's very heavy on predictions of doctors serving their own self-interest:

With the best and most successful doctors disappearing into concierge medicine or refusing new Medicare and Medicaid patients, replacing these experienced physicians with bright young doctors to work with the "general public" has become difficult. Why? Because such doctors are hard to find — going into medicine doesn't have the professional allure it once did.

This is the perspective of a doctor, who believes his profession is highly elite and deserves to be treated that way, but I think he's a little blind about the continuing ability of doctors to opt out of the system. Won't they be compelled to participate? I don't think they can be compelled to work if they choose to retire from the practice of medicine, but why wouldn't the government's system evolve into something that subsumes all medical practice? If there are shortages that frighten and distress the people, the doctors' options will, I predict, shrink.

Must the "professional allure" be preserved? Apparently, it's already gone. Who will want to be a doctor now? As the nightmare unfolds, we will find out. Old doctors are always checking out and the system is always producing new doctors (and other medical professionals). Who will they be and what will happen? Maybe in the future we will dispense with pediatric heart surgeons. We got by without pediatric heart surgery before 1956. I'm picturing lots of nurses and lots of palliative care.