New Answers Will Be Needed to Cure America's Doctor Shortage

In today's rapidly changing American health care system, one problem -- a critical shortage of doctors -- threatens to dwarf all other concerns. The situation is already bad. The United States has a current shortage of 16,000 primary care physicians, "the very doctors," to quote the AARP, "who offer the treatments and preventative screenings that save lives and head off expensive emergency room visits and hospitalizations." But the situation is getting worse. According to the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), the shortage of new doctors will reach 91,500 by 2020. Five years later, that number will climb to 130,600. Through the years, there has often been a shortage of doctors in rural America with many communities having only one doctor, some not even that. That's because twenty percent of the population lives in rural areas, but only nine percent of the nation's doctors work there. These days, though, the shortage is not confined to rural communities; it's also affecting cities and the suburbs. Part of the problem is generational as Baby Boomers start to retire. "Our country is aging fast," AAMC president Darrell G. Kirch observed last year. "The population of older Americans will double between 2000 and 2030. In fact, Baby Boomers will turn 65 at a rate of 10,000 per day for the next 19 years.... This translates to a new Medicare beneficiary every eight seconds." Then there's Obamacare. As the law takes hold, an increasing number of uninsured Americans --...
Source: Healthy Living - The Huffington Post - Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news