The Fund supports networks of state health policy decision makers to help identify, inspire, and inform policy leaders.
The Milbank Memorial Fund supports two state leadership programs for legislative and executive branch state government officials committed to improving population health.
The Fund identifies and shares policy ideas and analysis to advance state health leadership, strong primary care, and sustainable health care costs.
Keep up with news and updates from the Milbank Memorial Fund. And read the latest blogs from our thought leaders, including Fund President Christopher F. Koller.
The Fund publishes The Milbank Quarterly, as well as reports, issues briefs, and case studies on topics important to health policy leaders.
The Milbank Memorial Fund is is a foundation that works to improve population health and health equity.
December 1994 (Volume 72)
Quarterly Article
Eric J. Cassell
December 2024
Dec 19, 2024
Back to The Milbank Quarterly
The history of attempts to match the supply of physicians to the needs of health care in the United States—whether by regulation or by market forces—has not been marked by success. This gives me a cautious feeling as I read the essay by Fitzhugh Mullan and colleagues (1994), despite the fact that I share the belief with many others that it is necessary to actively increase the supply of generalists. James Thurber summed up the problem in a fable. He tells of a “fairly intelligent” fly who wisely refused to land on a spider web because there were no other flies on it, lighting instead on a piece of fly-paper crowded with flies because he assumed they were dancing. His moral: “There’s no safety in numbers, or anything else” (Thurber 1939).
Author(s): Eric J. Cassell
Download the Article
Read on JSTOR
Volume 72, Issue 4 (pages 713–717) Published in 1994
