Adverse Selection Among Health Care Workers

Potential employers have access to a federal list of physicians disciplined by state licensing boards. The federal government created a similar list of nurses, nurse aides, pharmacists and pharmacy aides, but even after 22 years, employers do not have access to this list. Why not? From NPR's "Morning Edition" we have:

By law, it was supposed to be open to hospitals and nursing homes when they hire staff and want to run a background check. But the Department of Health and Human Services never completed the regulation implementing the law. Turns out, slow-moving bureaucracy is the main culprit.

Some comments:

• Does the comparison of HHS to the DMV do injustice to the DMV?
• Employers will typically have access to their state's list. But which health care workers are more likely to move across state lines?
• Is NPR trying to undermine health care reform?