At a recent Healthcare Town Hall meeting hosted by President Obama in North Carolina, President Obama touched on a largely unspoken but critical aspect to healthcare access that affects large portions of our population...the shortage of primary care physicians. Without access to primary care physicians and preventative healthcare many people unwisely let health issues escalate into danger zones, thereby stressing their health to limit, as well as their finances. Rep Edwards has taken the early lead in addressing this issue by passing Doctor Shortage Loan Assistance Legislation in the recent legislative session. Below is an excerpt of the exchange at the Town Hall on Healthcare by the President and further information below on the issue:
TOWN HALL ATTENDEE: "As the wife of a family physician, we see people not only coming into that specialty less and less often, but also leaving that specialty because it’s so, so hard as a young family to make that work — long hours, not great reimbursement, not great pay, with huge amounts of debt when you come out of medical school. So what are you thinking of to entice more people to come into that speciality? Because you can insure every person in America and if there’s not a physician there to see that person you still don’t have health care. So what are you going to do to entice people to come — (applause.)"
PRESIDENT OBAMA: "This is a great question. Just so everybody understands what we’re talking about here, it used to be that the most common type of doctor was the family physician. You’d go in and they knew you and they knew your family. And every once in a while you’d go to a specialist, but basically you were dealing with a family doctor. Increasingly, the economics of being a primary care physician or a family doctor is a bad deal for a lot of medical students, because they come out with hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt. But it turns out that a primary care physician...is probably more valuable to the person’s health and to the society as a whole (than a surgeon), but if it’s not rewarded, then fewer and fewer people go into that branch of medicine. If we pass health reform — when we pass health reform — then what we’re going to — (applause) — and more people now have access to the system, it is going to be vital that we increase the number of primary care physicians. The best way for us to do it is...to provide scholarships and financial incentives for young medical students who are willing to go into the primary care field...then we can change I think the incentives for a lot of doctors so that we get more and more primary care physicians."
ENTER HB 2154 by Rep Al Edwards
Under HB 2154, Rep Al Edwards has taken the first step towards helping the country's healthcare system and increasing the country's health as a whole by passing the historic Physician Loan Repayment Program- HB 2154. The bill, now law, will provide loan repayment assistance in an amount up to $160,000 in exchange for 4 years of service to primary care physicians who agree to serve in underserved areas of the state including inner cities and rural areas. This will help bring up to 900 new doctors to these urban and rural areas.
This bill is monumental because it precisely addresses the crisis at hand...Medical Students now face student loan debts sometimes in excess of $160,000 upon entering practice. Therefore the student end up choosing more highly paid specialties in order to pay off their debt. This bill will help pay off their debts in near totality for them, by simply having them commit to serve in doctor shortage areas, areas in dire need of doctors. This ends up being a win-win for both the doctors and the people in that area because now they are able to receive more of the critical preventive care which is forte of primary care physicians.
In fact, this helps in part solve the national healthcare crisis because preventive care has been proven to drastically reduce later health costs in the patient because it stems and could prevent illnesses from developing which ends costing the patient more pain, heartache, treatment and ultimately more money.
Healthy lives are the cornerstone of communities and we all must do our part to make our lives better. Rep Edwards has received awards across the state for his leadership and commitment to helping achieve these goals, and he should be applauded for doing his part to accomplish the goals set out by President Obama in the national healthcare debate.
