ANNAPOLIS- Maryland is suffering a shortage of primary care doctors who cannot support an influx of patients that new federal health care mandates are expected to trigger, according to lawmakers. “We don’t have enough primary care providers and our medical schools aren’t producing enough,” said Sen. Delores Kelley, D-Baltimore County, at a Tuesday meeting of the state’s health care committee. Kelley said she gave up trying to get a flu shot with her doctor this year “because it would take me five months.” She said she turned to a pharmacy for the shot instead.
Roughly 15,000 doctors are practicing in Maryland, which has about 24,000 medical licenses available, according to Jay Schwartz, lobbyist for the Maryland State Medical Society, the doctors’ trade group.
“We’ve got a lot of licenses but we don’t have a lot of practicing doctors, and that is one of the essential fallacies of this whole thing,” Schwartz said. He ticked off a list of Maryland’s nationally renowned medical facilities including Johns Hopkins Hospital and the National Institutes of Health.
“We’re a vastly rich medical environment … but on the ground, primary care is not [adequate].”
Del. Adelaide Eckardt said the problem is particularly bad for her constituents on the Eastern Shore. The Republican said physicians are particularly scarce in Maryland’s rural districts.
Ellen Valentino, Maryland director of the National Federation of Independent Business, pleaded with lawmakers to stall the implementation of new federal mandates.
“Don’t act in February,” she said. “Don’t be in such a panic, unless you are getting some insight that we’re not aware of.”
She said she is afraid of an insurance marketplace run completely by the government. She also noted that her organization has filed a lawsuit against the federal requirement that everyone obtain health insurance.
But supporters of federal health care reforms are urging lawmakers to act swiftly.
“It’s not about the politics, it’s about the people,” said AARP Maryland director Rawle Andrews. “And the people are the patients.”
Acting now could save the state money later, he noted.
“By all means be deliberate … start building the ark,” he said.
“There’s nothing we’ve ever seen that when you wait until the last minute to start it, it costs less.”
