Author: Brian Ferguson
Issues in the Demand for Medical Care: Can Consumers and Doctors be Trusted to Make the Right Choices? explores the concept of physician induced demand, one of the fundamental underpinnings of the policy where government limits enrolment in medical schools and artificially limits the number of Canadian physicians. Correlating high demand for health care services with the number of doctors practising in an area does not in itself confirm physician-induced demand. In fact, it is far more likely that the demand for medical services in an area induces physicians to practise there.