Dive Brief:
- President Obama is asking Congress to appropriate more than $5 billion to new training programs to combat the growing physician shortage.
- His budget proposal calls for increased training dollars to train 13,000 primary care residents over the next 10 years, as well as to increase the National Health Service Corps from 8,900 primary care providers a year to 15,000 a year.
- The budget proposal adds nearly $4 billion to the National Health Service Corps over the next six years.
Dive Insight:
It appears that the Obama administration is taking the need for an expanded clinical corps seriously. Depending on how enrollment in ACA policies goes, this may still not be enough to meet the demand for primary care, given its central role in health reform. Still, it is encouraging to see that the administration is addressing the shortage problem directly.