Conscripted physician services and the public's health.

The prevailing wisdom is that improving patient access to physician services is essential to promoting the public's health. This article suggests that, ironically, one effect of the 2010 federal health reform legislation may be to discourage physicians from serving the statute's intended beneficiaries, thereby exacerbating the access problem. The article examines several potential approaches to addressing this problem, comparing - from legal and policy perspectives - strategies based on legal conscription of physician services versus strategies that instead would rely on incentivizing physician participation in serving otherwise access-impaired populations. The author argues in favor of the latter approach rather than one based on use of governmental force.