National health insurance and the physician assistant.

Although American medicine has vastly improved the delivery of medical care during the last half-century, there are still many problems confronting our health care delivery system. The physician assistant concept is but one attempt of many to alleviate the problem of access to health care of an acceptable quality. Another concept is national health insurance as a measure to bridge the economic gaps in medical care not met by Medicare, Medicaid, and private health insurance; and to make better use of all health resources. Physician assistants can have a beneficial impact on health care under national health insurance by: improving access to care; keeping practice costs down; and improving the quality of care provided. A program of national health insurance will undoubtedly create increased public demand to provide more health services than currently offered by federal programs. National health insurance can succeed only if an appropriate financing mechanism is developed and valid attempts are made to utilize available manpower such as physician assistants. These issues are discussed.