U.S. Faces Shortage of Doctors
As many of us have said over and over, health care reform was never about lifting the uninsured up to the same level of care as everyone else. It was about dragging the rest of us down in order to accommodate them.
The new federal health-care law has raised the stakes for hospitals and schools already scrambling to train more doctors.
Experts warn there won’t be enough doctors to treat the millions of people newly insured under the law. At current graduation and training rates, the nation could face a shortage of as many as 150,000 doctors in the next 15 years, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges.
That shortfall is predicted despite a push by teaching hospitals and medical schools to boost the number of U.S. doctors, which now totals about 954,000.
The greatest demand will be for primary-care physicians. These general practitioners, internists, family physicians and pediatricians will have a larger role under the new law, coordinating care for each patient.
The U.S. has 352,908 primary-care doctors now, and the college association estimates that 45,000 more will be needed by 2020. But the number of medical-school students entering family medicine fell more than a quarter between 2002 and 2007.
A shortage of primary-care and other physicians could mean more-limited access to health care and longer wait times for patients.
I think everyone should call John Spratt’s office and ask what he intends to do about this doctor shortage? After all, he had to have known about this issue. I mean, he wouldn’t have voted for a 2,000 page bill without knowing the ramifications of it, right?
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