While the Affordable Care Act will provide health-insurance coverage for 32 million previously uninsured individuals (most of them lower-income Blacks and Latinos), there’s a serious concern that there won’t be enough physicians to treat these patients. And will new physicians understand the needs of a previously uninsured, undertreated and less-health-aware population
A sobering new U.S. Senate report indicates that nearly 57 million people in the U.S.—about one in five—live in areas where they do not have adequate access to primary healthcare because of a shortage of providers. This shortage is most pronounced in rural and low-income areas, and it means more emergency-room visits, less access to preventive care, and less chance of someone establishing a relationship of trust with a healthcare provider.
Access to primary care has repeatedly been shown to have a strong impact on health disparities: One study from 2005 showed that access reduced deaths among Blacks four times more than among whites—even after controlling for education and income. Findings such as this usually point to the value primary care provides in terms of early detection and treatment of conditions such as hypertension and diabetes, and in terms of the ability to be screened for cancers, such as colon cancer, which are more likely to be treatable if discovered early.
