"If we want to truly fulfill the promise of health care reform, we must invest in the health work force," which is receiving "less attention" than the reform law's "impact on the insured and the insurers," according to a San Francisco Chronicle opinion piece by Janet Coffman -- an adjunct professor at UC-San Francisco -- and Gil Ojeda -- director of UC-Berkeley's California Program on Access to Care.

"As millions more people become insured" and as baby boomers age, the "number of patients requiring services will dramatically increase," they write, adding, "California's universities and community colleges will have the capacity to train only two-thirds" of an estimated one million allied health workers the state will need by 2030. Coffman and Ojeda conclude, "What's really needed is an ambitious plan to fully develop California's health work force."

• "Reform Means More Health Workers Needed" (Coffman/Ojeda, San Francisco Chronicle, 10/22).