Congress is looking to narrow our nation's doctor shortage. After introducing legislation that would reform our primary care system, Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders (I-VT) said last month , "Tens of millions of Americans live in communities where they cannot find a doctor while others have to wait months to be seen."

The Vermont socialist is right. Too many people do struggle to find a doctor. But his preferred solution — spending tens of billions of taxpayer dollars to recruit and train more providers, among other things — is wasteful. Instead, policymakers should focus on relaxing regulations that needlessly limit the supply of care.

Consider scope-of-practice laws . In many states, these regulations prohibit nurse practitioners and physician assistants from practicing without the oversight of a physician or performing certain services, even if they're trained to do so.

That artificially restricts the supply of care. According to one estimate , allowing nurse practitioners alone to practice to the full extent of their training would reduce the number of people living in a county with a primary care shortage by 70%.

Or take the federal requirement that providers make "meaningful use" of electronic health records to maintain their Medicare and Medicaid payments. Physicians must log enormous amounts of data in electronic health records for each patient, even if it's irrelevant to their care. One study found providers spend 4.5 hours per day dealing with electronic health records — time that would almost certainly be better spent seeing patients.

Medicare and Medicaid have plenty of other administrative hurdles that waste providers' time. Providers often have to spend hours fighting Medicaid to get reimbursements, which are generally a fraction of what they receive from private insurance. Some physicians have responded to this hassle by refusing to accept Medicaid altogether.

Dismantling these bureaucratic barriers would go a long way toward increasing the supply of physicians ready to care for patients. We need less government in our healthcare system — not more.

Sally C. Pipes is president, CEO, and Thomas W. Smith fellow in healthcare policy at the Pacific Research Institute. Her latest book is  False Premise, False Promise: The Disastrous Reality of Medicare for All  (Encounter 2020). Follow her on Twitter @sallypipes .