I n many years of advocating for the health care industry, I have learned that public officials often do not realize the consequences of changes they make in public policy. Quite often their dream legislation becomes a nightmare when implementing.
The impact of “reforming” the nation’s health care system gets lost in the rush to make well-intended changes.
Case in point is the army physicians that will be needed to treat those 46 million uninsured. If you provide an affordable access program, the patients will come in droves.
Unfortunately, we do not have the primary care physicians needed to treat them. And honestly, it will take a decade to fix the problem even if we make public policy changes.
Currently, the shortage of primary care physicians is expected to reach 40,000 in 10 years. Public policy changes that eliminate educational debt and provide other incentives must pass Congress and then be implemented before we can solve the problem.
