With the rising costs of health care and insurance it's pretty obvious that something needs to be done to bring those costs back down. How can we do that? Increase the number of PCPs and decrease the number of specialists. Not to take away from the skill and necessity of specialists, because of course they do fill an invaluable position in the health care system. No doubt, there will always be people in need of a cardiologist, neurologist, or neonatologist since illness is inevitable. However, the role of the PCP for a typical person precedes the need for a specialized physician. The average person will probably not need to seek out the services of a cardiologist until they're well into their 50s or 60s (one should hope not any earlier) and may not even ever seek out the service of a neurologist in their lifetime. But, each and every one of us will most definitely NEED the services of a PCP. No ifs, ands, or buts; we WILL visit a PCP all throughout our life. In addition, (and someone let me know if I'm wrong on this) but I've never heard of a dire need for specialists. It seems that there has always been a hefty supply of specialists when the need arises. With this staggering difference in necessity I think that there needs to be some type of incentive that would motivate medical students to take on a career as a PCP as opposed to a specialist. One way this can be done is to have hospitals appropriately limit the number of available positions for fellowships. That way only a certain amount of specialized physicians will emerge each year and the rest of these residents will either have to wait until next year to apply for these fellowships or choose instead to become a PCP. I think that one possibility to increase the ratio of PCPs to specialists would be to provide some type of incentive to medical students for choosing primary care as opposed to specializing. Maybe they could be given higher priority when it comes down to matching for residencies or even a contract that would already secure them a position at a hospital once they finish their residency. In the long run, increasing the number of PCPs seems to be the best solution to bring our health care system up to par with those other countries who have a superior system to ours.