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One additional problem that we are running into on the issue of health care is the fact that our nation doesn't have enough Primary Care physicians. These doctors are incredibly important, since they are the first line of defense against illness in America.
Over the next 10 years, our nation is expected to have a shortfall of 40,000 Primary Care doctors. By 2025, that number is expected to balloon to over 120,000. To make matters worse, our population is aging, implying that there will be a greater demand for these doctors in the future.
Many physicians are turned away from primary care because the salaries are far lower than those of specialists, who typically earn over $350,000 per year. Primary Care doctors, on the other hand, have an average salary of $173,000. Additionally, there is reduced prestige for those who engage in Primary Care, which is considered to be the field that students enter into when they aren't smart enough to do anything else. I personally disagree with this assessment, since the job of the Primary Care physician is one of the most important medical endeavors in our society.
The question I asked Dr. Sanjay Gupta last night was simple: "Where's the money?" The pharmaceutical industry was the third most profitable industry in the world last year, and the health insurance industry was also in the top 10. Humana, a large hospital chain made $30 billion dollars in revenue last year, and over one billion in profits. In fact, Health Insurance companies posted record profits last year, in the middle of one of the deepest recessions in American history.
The point in discussing revenues and profits was to toss aside the idea that our government should take on the burdensome financial challenge of providing higher compensation to primary care doctors. The truth is that the health care industry can afford to provide additional compensation to these doctors, pay off their student loans and do all that is necessary to give them incentives to stay in the profession. For some reason, our government has backed away from the idea of allowing big insurance and pharmaceutical companies to take on this financial challenge. There must be across the board accountability for who profits and loses in this massive health care industry. Given that Americans spend as much money on health care as the GDP of India, we have no shortage of financial solutions to this very serious problem. It's now time for us to show the courage necessary to make legitimate reforms.
The video from AC 360 is below. Enjoy!
Dr. Boyce Watkins is the founder of the Your Black World Coalition. To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your email, please click here. 
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By: mek on 3/05/2010 8:55AM
Whenever there is a new article that mentions the shortage of primary care physicians, there is never any mention of the role nurse practitioners play in providing primary care. Nurse Practitioners are trained to provide advanced physical assessments and a medical plan of care to their patients. Nurse practitioners can handle 80% of the population that are seen by primary care physicians.
Because nurse practitioners are trained as patient advocates and educators, they often provide more comprhensive care than physicians. Plus their salary is 1/2 that quoted for a primary care physician. Training more nurse practitioners to work collaboratively with primary care physicians is a realistic solution to the anticipated primary care physician shortage.
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By: James W on 4/03/2010 12:43AM
How many of you have dealt with Nurse Pract.s I have and I can promise you that many just do not have to knowledge or expertise to do much . One over dosed me on meds and kept on until I ended up hospitalized. There's not that much over sight because of the lack of doctors. I have had only one or two that I would consider as compilant . The V A system is full of them.With the V A you have no choise about different doctors. They assign you one and then tell them just what kind of test ect. that they can do most of the time unless certain conditions are met.I even had a doctor in the V A in Oregon that said the only thing that he would do is care and maintenence(that means no operations unless it was absolutely life saveing.)I think that once the rules are written up by H HS you'll find alot of people that won't be getting anything but the bare minimum of health care.By the way for those that don't know the V A is the veterans administration.If you're young you might get some extra in health care but once you get old like me it's just not economically feesable to keep trying to fix you.
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