Nursing shortage is just another symptom of our broken health system

Regarding the recent article “Nursing shortage will continue to pinch hospital margins” (ModernHealthcare.com, March 7), this is a classic example of how our healthcare system doesn’t work. We have extreme supply and demand imbalances and we don’t have a model that promotes supply where needed. We are not paying many nurses enough (much like teachers), and because the consumer (patient) often has little say in whether their care is delivered by a nurse’s aide, LPN, RN, NP, BSN, PA, physician, etc., we do not have the “price signals” to inform decisions about educational capacity, establish fair market salaries, or otherwise satisfy the will of the customer. It’s all decided for us by government and large insurance companies. That’s a broken system and it will soon represent 20% of our gross domestic product.

David Silverstein CEO BrokenHealthcare.org Denver