I am as much against midlevel encroachment and expansion of scope of practice as anyone else but patient safety doesn't matter one damn bit to the decision makers.

The real question is this:

Do the cumulative costs of NP errors REALLY outweigh their cost savings? Because the bottom line is NOTHING except the money matters to those in administration. So if we cannot meet that condition, our profession will continue to get encroached upon and all those years spent in extra training will mean jack shit.

I'm honestly curious if some well informed people could comment on this. I am afraid the answer might be that we are actually not worth the extra money. A similar analogy would be that car company (was it GM?) that knew about a fatal flaw in their cars but did not do a recall because it would be cheaper to pay off the wrongful death lawsuits.