RE: Support of S. 1152, the “Building a Health Care Workforce for the Future Act”
Dear Senators Reed and Blunt:
As the Alliance of Specialty Medicine (Alliance), our mission is to advocate for sound
federal health care policy that fosters patient access to the highest quality specialty care. As
patient and physician advocates, the Alliance writes in support of your legislation, S. 1152,
the “Building a Health Care Workforce for the Future Act”, which will strengthen the health
care workforce through improving core competencies and providing grants to states for
medical scholarship programs to encourage health professionals to stay and practice in the
state. There is currently a severe physician workforce shortage in primary care and many
specialties. Clearly, this shortage will only worsen with the health care expansion in the
Affordable Care Act, in addition to the baby boomers entering their senior years.
While the Alliance acknowledges the need to increase the number of available primary care
providers, this only addresses part of the problem. The United States will face an overall
shortage of more than 130,000 physicians by 2025. One-half of this shortage, however, will
come from specialty physicians, including neurosurgeons, urologists, cardiologists,
gastroenterologists, plastic and reconstructive surgeons, and orthopaedic surgeons. Given
the increased demand created for their services by an aging population and expanded
insurance coverage, we need to take steps now to ensure a fully trained specialty physician
workforce for the future. Your legislation will begin to help improve the acute shortage of
specialty physicians, including addressing geographic distribution based on local need.
Both primary and specialist care physicians are an integral part of American medicine. We
support the state scholarship retention program proposed in your legislation, which
accommodates both specialty and primary care medical scholarship programs. The core
competencies provision in your bill will further help to foster innovation in the training of
both primary and specialty care physicians.
Your legislation would improve the nation’s medical education system and help to preserve
access to essential health services for many Americans. For these reasons, the undersigned
organizations of the Alliance support your legislation, S. 1152, the “Building a Health Care
Workforce for the Future Act.”
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