By Zach Krings
FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. – With the fate of the entire U.S. health care system hanging in the balance, many doctors have voiced concern, or praise, for the current health care reform bill. But no matter what their stance, many agree that something must be done to bring change to a broken system.
The present bill proposes to make this change by providing affordable medical care to all Americans. This will be done by providing competition in the health care marketplace, placing restrictions on insurance companies, and slowing sharply rising costs.
“In short, the problem is lack of affordable, universal access to medical care,” said Dr. Carl Shrader, who has been practicing medicine in Flagstaff for 43 years.
If the bill is passed by the Senate, and signed by President Obama, then health care would be virtually universal. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the bill would insure 96 percent of Americans.
“If we can spend all this money to drop bombs on other countries,” said Dr. Carroll Wheat, a Phoenix general practitioner, “then why can’t we afford to give everybody health care?”
Dr. Eric Henley of North Country HealthCare in Flagstaff believes that one of the main reasons 45 million are uninsured is because the system has been dominated by specialists, such as cardiologists and pediatricians. The way to reduce costs is to get more doctors to go into general practice, he said.
“We need more family doctors,” Shrader agreed. “Specialists charge high premiums, yet [family doctors] can treat 95 percent of the things they come across.”
This explosion of general practitioners would help reduce wait times at doctors’ offices, which is expected to get worse if the reform passes. In fact, many health care providers in Flagstaff, especially North Country, currently already have difficulty seeing all their patients on a daily basis.
“It’s a chaotic system,” Henley said. “If we get health care reform, the uninsured rate will drop a chunk.”
If this happens, the demand for services will increase, and add tension to an already strained Flagstaff system. That is unless more general practitioners enter the field. Henley said that this access is one of the biggest problems that Flagstaff, and the health care system in general, is plagued with.
Shrader thinks that the government should subsidize medical students’ schooling, as long as the students agree to practice for a minimum of five years as general practitioners. This way, residents of Flagstaff, and the country, would receive the care they need. This would be a similar model to what the military currently does for medical officers.
“Thirteen percent of doctors last year signed up for family doctor positions,” Shrader said.
At this rate, the American Academy of Family Physicians expects a deficit of 40,000 family doctors by 2020. Rural towns, and small cities such as Flagstaff, are expected to be hit the hardest by this shortage.
“Reform will pass,” Henley says, “I’m pretty confident we’ll get something…it won’t be optimal” but it will be something. You have to start somewhere.
