Golden Sun eXtra Your Local News Source, Mohave County, AZ

The present health care reform legislation could increase the number of insured Americans by tens of millions. An increasing doctor shortage is already leaving tens of thousands without primary care doctors. Arizona is already ranked 38 in the 50 states for number of doctors per person.

Doctors are saying that, as primary care physicians, they only make $150,000 per year, so they want more money and the new health care package is not even in effect yet. So what are they going to do when the new health care begins? Go on strike? Are there any provisions in the new health care that says that doctors cannot go on strike? We wouldn't want to become socialized now, would we?

Well, the doctors are saying there is another solution called a medical home. Your primary care doctor becomes your first "point of contact" under which doctors would be paid more to serve as a medical home to a patient. But will these reforms increase the number of primary care doctors?

The young doctors don't want to be doing the same thing the older doctors were 20 years ago. This is the only way to encourage them to choose primary care. Without medical home, new doctors are just going to continue to go into specialty and sub-specialty care, because it's the only way they can pay off their student loans and make a lot of money.

Now isn't that an innovative approach? Our country is short between 40,000 and 80,000 doctors. This a growing problem in desperate need of a fix.

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