Missing from the Democrats’ health plans is how to treat the newly insured. Massachusetts is finding out that there aren’t enough doctors to treat the influx of patients. This WSJ op-ed suggests using foreign trained physicians:
Massachusetts ran into this problem: Few doctors wanted (or were able, given widespread shortages in many specialties) to treat many of the patients qualifying under the program. The solution lies in allowing imports of medical personnel tied into tending to the newly insured.This is what the Great Society program did in the 1960s, with imports of doctors whose visas tied them, for specific periods, to serving remote, rural areas. U.S.-trained physicians practicing for a specified period in an “underserved” area were not required to return home.
Related posts:
- Massachusetts and emergency overcrowding
- Foreign doctors and primary care
- ED overcrowding by the insured
- Op-ed: More coverage requires more doctors
- "Why do doctors treat anyone who practices malpractice law?"
- Foreign medical graduates and mid-levels will provide the majority of tomorrow’s primary care
- EMR realities
KevinMD.com on Facebook
{ 7 comments }
Typical Wall Street Journal advocacy: flood the labor pool with cheap imports- as long as the finacial mavens and pols can continue to be helicoptered to MGH for their own personal problems, that is.
Problems with this:
1. Many foreign medical graduates do not have the enormous student loan burden that American Medical Graduates do. So they are willing and able to work well below the already insufficient compensation. It’s the professional equivalent of immigrant labor driving down the cost of manufacturing a product.
2. Remember how exit polling from many of the country’s rural areas indicated opposition to voting for a candidate based on his race? While I find this racist underbelly of our nation a disgrace, it translates into a real problem, when these are some of the hardest-hit areas in terms of primary care shortage. An incalculable number of patients will refuse to let these perfectly capable physicians touch them. And many of those that do will face barriers to trust and communication that WILL and DO impact the effectiveness of care.
I have nothing but utmost respect for my FMG colleagues. And if we lived in the type of country that I hope the United States will one day be, it wouldn’t matter. But opening the floodgates of FMG labor, while filling a short-term need and making the numbers look better, will pour gasoline to the flames.
If they can get FMGs to do general medicine here cheaply, fine. American medical school graduates are wisely avoiding the financial disaster that is primary care anyway. The FMGs will be a lot better at dealing with the complicated and elderly patients than PAs or DNPs.
If patients have a problem with FMGs, too bad. They can either pay to see another doc, get used to FMGs, or see midlevels.
Maybe, when CMS is really broke, they can import foreign PAs and DNPs who’ll work for even less…
FMG’s practice to the same demographics as US graduates. You can bring all the FMG’s you want, but they will go to the same places as USA graduates, for the same reasons.
They do their J-1 stint and head for suburban American specialty practice.
One doesn’t leave a nation drowning in poor people and travel half-way around the world to the richest nation on earth for the purpose of taking care of the poor at low prices. That was the idea 30 years ago–and it hasn’t worked out that way has it?
This is typically behavior of our society. We are essentially “stealing” providers from countries that desperately need those physicians, so in order to deal with our shortage, we short countries in dire need of care.
Sorta like Robin Hood stealing physicians from the poor and giving to the rich Americans.
IMO — this is an impossibility. The AMA will fight this, tooth-and-nail.
A more realistic option — “medical onshoring.”
http://medicalonshoring.blogspot.com/
“ .. Our patent-pending model would supplement existing health care providers,” Chien said. “Our goals are to maximize scarce medical care dollars and provide affordable, quality health care services that are engineered with best practices at the forefront.”
http://www.medicalonshoring.net
Comments on this entry are closed.