The Need For More Basic Care

It is a fact that those who receive primary care consistently are healthier individuals, which leads to a better society. Since this type of care improves overall health of societies and significantly steers many costs away, then there needs to be an effort to increase resources into primary health care. I think there should be about 60% primary care, 20% specialty care and 20% hospital services. Even with this seemingly high percentage for primary care, I think that the high quality of care can still be achieved because over time a healthier society would lead to less costly health issues. However, in order to get a higher percentage of individuals to receive primary care, there needs to be more of a supply available to meet the demand. With only 31% of medical students going into primary care, that is an inadequate amount required to reach the masses that need primary care.

The issue lies within getting the culture of health care to change. The disdain that medical students/physicians have for the primary care physician must be addressed somehow. Family care physicians must receive more regard for the work they do. I don’t understand why humans tend to look down upon professions that may not be the most glamorous but are extremely important. Ironically, not enough value is placed on the importance of primary care physicians, when in fact they can practically be considered the most valuable. As a result of public and private payment policies that fail to adequately pay family physicians for their services, primary care is fading into obscurity. It will be a problem that continues to persist because our unwillingness to reward those who do the “dirty” work accordingly. If there were no garbage men, who would clean the garbage, if there were not a janitors, who would clean the toilet, if there were no bus drivers….. I think I have proved my point now. As “Medicare’s payment system for physicians become increasingly and consistently more adopted by private health plans," (Arvantes, 2007) most people will not go into primary care positions because the money and prestige isn’t there. According to Helen Darling, president of the National Business Group on Health, if we “want to have an effective and efficient health care system, it has to be founded on a strong system with appropriate primary care" (Arvantes, 2007). By not giving this aspect of health care its due respect by compensating them more in comparison to their specialty physician counterparts, then an effective and efficient health care system will not be achieved.

Arvantes, James. Health Care Experts Describe the Benefits of Primary Care. AAFP, 2007. http://www.aafp.org/online/en/home/publications/news/news-now/professional-issues/20070611pcforum.html