The New Health Dialogue

The shortage of primary care doctors is a big problem across the nation, but it's an especially big problem in underserved areas, where people are more likely to struggle with poverty and less likely to have health insurance.

In Boston the other day, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced that $200 million from the economic stimulus package would help recruit primary care doctors, according to the Boston Herald. In exchange for federal aid in paying off medical school debt and student loans for medical, dental, and mental health professionals (up to $50,000 in repayment), clinicians pledge two years of service through the National Health Service Corps. Through this organization, clinicians will be assigned to an underserved area designated as a Health Professional Shortage Area. Those can be populous urban centers or poor, rural areas where there are simply not enough doctors to meet the needs of the population.

Sebelius' choice of Massachusetts was particularly significant to this issue. The state has managed to extend health care coverage to approximately 97 percent of the population, but it's still striving to increase the number of primary care physicians in the state.

Sebelius stated that increasing the number of primary care doctors was vitally important to the President's goal of national health care reform, and the funding is expected to bring more than 3,000 new health professionals into the National Health Service Corps. Primary care doctors are the key to health reform goals such as lowering cost and providing more comprehensive, preventative care to patients. Given that many doctors feel pressured out of primary care by financial concerns including large medical school debt, investing in the National Health Service Corps is a smart investment in the future health of all Americans.