In his town-hall meeting today, President Obama hit on the familiar theme that there is a “severe shortage” of primary care physicians. “Primary care physicians, they make a lot less money than specialists,” he said. “[O]ne of the things we can do is to reimburse doctors who are providing preventive care and not just the surgeon who provides care after somebody is sick.” He also called for “helping pay for medical education for those who are willing to go into primary care.” Of course, we’ve all heard this sort of thing before. What do the two big health-care bills introduced so far this year in Congress actually do to address these issues? Deep in the 1,018-page House bill (p. 879) is a description of a “primary care training and

capacity building program” that would provide financial assistance to medical students who choose to go into primary care. It would also fund training programs for primary care. A similar proposal exists in the Senate HELP Committee Affordable Health Choices Act , with a preference for funding programs that would provide primary care to vulnerable populations such as the mentall ill and people with HIV/AIDS or disabilities. And both bills would set up pilot projects to test the “ medical home ,” a mechanism that would pay doctors to coordinate patients’ care, and that could benefit primary care docs. For more on the meeting, read this post from our colleagues at Washington Wire. Image: iStockphoto

Read the original here:
Obama: ‘Severe Shortage’ of Primary Care Docs