Universal Health Care No Cure Without Primary Care Fix

clipped from blogs.wsj.com Universal health care may solve one health problem but it would worsen another, Benjamin Brewer writes in his latest WSJ.com column. A projection from the American Academy of Family Physicians shows that the U.S. needs to increase the number of family physicians by 40% to 140,000 by 2020 in order to meet growing demand. Brewer and other doctors say that many are discouraged about entering primary care because payments to doctors aren’t keeping pace with the rising costs of doing business “Until we adequately fund primary care, we’re not going to get the health system Americans expect,” Dr. Brewer writes. Furthermore, he writes, doctors would be less inclined to take on Medicare and Medicaid patients if the stingy government payers suddenly became the vehicles for caring for the uninsured. Bonus Coverage: Join Brewer in a discussion in his online forum about reconciling universal health care and the growing gaps in on our system of primary care.