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Healthcare

We who live in rural areas understand very well the crisis our health care system faces. The treatment we need may be far away and the nurses and doctors we so desperately require are becoming scarcer for our smaller communities. Without accessible healthcare providers, the dream of universal health care is a myth.

The changes to our health care system proposed by Democrats offer real solutions. Most agree that we need to cut costs by streamlining records, provide people with chronic diseases the regular support they need to manage their conditions for better, less costly results, do better preventative care, tackle the health care insurance crisis and all the rest. As your representative I will join and support that ongoing effort with universal healthcare as our goal.

But we in rural areas understand that a vital piece of the solution isn't even being talked about, and that is increasing the number of primary care physicians. The best, most affordable, highest quality care for families and their children is provided by family doctors in our local communities. They order fewer expensive tests, and because they often provide care from cradle to grave they rely on their intimate knowledge of their patients to effectively treat chronic conditions and do the wellness care the prevents disease and catches serious problems before they become serious conditions.

Unfortunately, numbers of primary care physicians are dropping. Family practice doctors and general care internists earn far less than their specialist colleagues, making it more and more a reality that medical students are choosing not to become primary care physicians. They can't afford to! Doctors leave school with hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loans to pay back, and they see higher paying specialties such as surgery and cardiology as the solution. Currently, according to former assistant surgeon general, Dr. Douglas Kamerow, only 35% of our medical workforce is made up of primary care physicians while in other industrialized countries, that number is 50% or more. The number of medical students choosing primary care has decreased by half in the past 10 years. I believe these trends can be turned around. First, primary care physicians should be paid more. They often receive half the pay of their specialized colleagues, and studies have shown that the lower tech care provided by primary care physicians costs less while resulting in the same outcome.

Second, the payment systems set up by insurance and government should generously pay for the lower tech treatment such as increased time on intensive services such as counseling. Those few extra minutes family doctors spend answering patients questions and helping them fully understand treatment options can save our healthcare system millions down the line. Family doctors should also be financially rewarded for non-traditional services such as group information and education services and even services provided to their patients via email. Lastly, we need to provide incentives to medical students for entering primary care such as loan forgiveness programs.

As your Congressman I will work with my colleagues to make certain that healthcare reform includes increasing availability of effective, affordable primary care in our rural communities. It is not a privilege. It is our right.