U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., thinks closing a federal loophole can help add to the number of doctors across the nation.
Nelson filed a bill on Monday to change the Medicare Graduate Medical Education rules. Currently those rules prevent hospitals who already rely on part-time residents from setting up full-time residency programs.
Pointing to numbers from the Association of American Medical Colleges showing the nation will face a shortage of up to 90,000 doctors by 2025, Nelson insisted his bill allowing these hospitals to use full-time residents would lead to additional training and more new physicians. Currently eleven hospitals would be impacted across the nation.
“There’s no doubt that we will soon be facing a severe shortage of doctors in this country,” Nelson said.” We need to do everything we can to help our hospitals train the next generation of doctors necessary to meet this growing demand for care.”
Nelson rounded up some co-sponsors from both parties to support his proposal. Republican U.S. Sens. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Rob Portman of Ohio and Democrats U.S. Sens. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin and Sherrod Brown of Ohio.
“I am proud to join my colleagues in introducing this commonsense bipartisan bill to help Wisconsin grow a strong health care workforce,” said Baldwin. “Our medical colleges and hospitals have committed to improving access to care in our rural areas by training the next generation of providers. We must do more to address our health care workforce shortage to safeguard access to the high quality health care that our Wisconsin families need and deserve. This bill is a vital step to achieve this goal.”
“This commonsense bill is a critical step towards ensuring Ohioans and all Americans have access to affordable, quality health care,” said Portman. “Several hospitals in Ohio are currently unfairly penalized from establishing physician training programs because of a barrier in the law. This bipartisan bill will remove this barrier and ensure all hospitals can train physicians to meet the health care needs of our country’s growing population.”
Nelson’s bill was sent to the Senate Finance Committee on Monday. There is currently no House counterpart.
Reach Kevin Derby at kderby@sunshinestatenews.com or follow him on Twitter: @KevinDerbySSN
