Read all about it More and more people are able to use nurse practitioners instead of doctors for preliminary care. As everyone begins to demand Rolls Royce health care for go kart prices, this option will make more and more (dollars and) sense. Doctors have historically made themselves out to be the holders of the golden medical keys, but this self-made medical myth is proving to be as fictional as Prometheus seeing his liver eaten by a crow every day for all eternity. For example, a recent study found that a computer program which was fed the symptoms of typical illnesses diagnosed the illness correctly >90% of the time. Doctors who were handed these same symptoms and then asked what illness the symptoms described got it right just over 50% of the time. Doctors are people, but they are so far into Egomaniaville that they feel they are impervious to error and everyone else is not. So to continue this philosophy that doctors should be the gatekeepers of all medical treatment is to damn us into emergency room visits for throbbing ear infections that flare up on a Saturday. Creative medical treatments and sources for said care are the cure to the medical care cost crisis.