Nurse practitioners may be given more authority due to health care overhaul as well as dearth of primary care doctors in States. Nurses who are having advanced degrees are fighting for the right to practice on their own. The East Texas medical community is afraid that it will get worse. Jeri Brown, a nurse practitioner for Trinity Clinic revealed that when everyone has health care coverage, health care system will be burdened with providing coverage to all and sundry.

About 28 states will let these nurses practice independently, as there is a shortage of doctors. According to Brown, professionals in her field play a large role in health care. Brown said, "We are definitely trained in assessment, diagnosis, treatment of patients... they estimate that nurse practitioners are able to do at least 85% of what a family practice physician does".

Doctor Melissa Gerdes opined that there is a difference in doctors and nurses having advanced degrees. She added that Physicians on average put in 20,000 hours of training, while nurse practitioners come out of training programs with 2,000 hours of training.

Texas Nurse Practitioners organization has 8000 nurses. Nurse practitioners are paid about 85% of what it pays doctors by Medicare.