Access

"Getting primary medical care when you're poor or uninsured is challenging everywhere. In some places in California, people can at least tap into extensive county services and flourishing networks of federally financed community clinics."

"The pending Supreme Court decision on the Affordable Care Act and the fall presidential election raise concerns about what would happen if the insurance expansion promised by the landmark health reform law were to be curtailed. This paper’s analysis of national survey estimates found that access to health care and use of health services for adults ages 19–64—the primary targets of the Affordable Care Act—deteriorated between 2000 and 2010, particularly among those who were uninsured."

"Minorities are expected to make up more than half the U.S. population by 2050, but a lack of minority physicians, creates major health-care obstacles for underrepresented racial ethnic groups. The L. D. Britt, MD Scholarship Fund is working to solve that problem."

"Mineral Community Hospital was approved by the American Osteopathic Association for the first primary care residency programs in western Montana and one of the first family medicine residencies in the nation to be located in a frontier community at a Critical Access Hospital (CAH). The Frontier Family Medicine Program will provide a new opportunity for physicians interested in a career in rural medicine."

"'Man down in the men’s washroom!' This cry is not part of the usual hospital soundtrack, but when Dr. David A. Ansell heard it as he sped down a corridor in the old Cook County Hospital in Chicago, he barely broke stride. He veered into the men’s room, tried the locked door of the stall where a crumpled body lay, hoisted himself up over the fetid contents of the adjacent toilet, balanced on the metal divider and prepared to descend and administer CPR."

"David Ansell, MD, captures much of the story of 'County' in his recent book of the same name. It starts with his arrival as a new intern in 1978. He was part of a group of medical students from Upstate Medical School, the State University of New York medical school in Syracuse, he and 3 others in internal medicine and one in pediatrics."

"A Black man on the south side of Chicago will live 8 years less than the average white man in the US.  Much of this life expectancy gap is due to excess heart disease and cancer among Black men compared to whites.  This gap could be reduced with prevention, early detection and access to primary care.  The failures of the health care system in Chicago and in particular the gaping holes in the public health safety-net are partly to blame."

"The White House said Tuesday it will not move forward with a proposal that would have tested the ease or difficulty for Americans in finding and receiving primary medical care through the use of so-called 'mystery shoppers.'"

"Alarmed by a shortage of primary care doctors, Obama administration officials are recruiting a team of “mystery shoppers” to pose as patients, call doctors’ offices and request appointments to see how difficult it is for people to get care when they need it."