When it comes to expanding access to healthcare, few reforms are as obvious—and as overdue—as giving nurse practitioners the freedom to practice to the full extent of their training. Across the country, patients wait weeks for a primary care appointment, and costs continue to climb. Yet in Texas and other states, laws protecting physicians from competition prevent nurse practitioners from filling the gap. By modernizing scope-of-practice rules, states could expand patient access to primary care, lower costs for patients, and maintain high-quality outcomes. The only cost would be dismantling a protectionist system lobbied for by doctors that professional self-interest above the health of the public.
Doctors, like any special interest, are financially benefited by preventing competition. The American Medical Association (AMA), which lobbies on behalf of physicians, boasts that it helped block 80 state bills to expand practice authority for other healthcare professionals in 2024, and more than 100 others in 2023. When non-physician providers gain authority, it means more competition. Nurse practitioners (NPs) in particular threaten the dominance of doctors in primary care by offering the same quality service at lower cost.
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Justin Leventhal is a senior policy analyst for the American Consumer Institute, a nonprofit education and research organization. For more information about the Institute, visit www.TheAmericanConsumer.Org or follow us on X @ConsumerPal