Editorial: Bills the right prescription for California's health care provider gap
LA Daily News
Starting next year, nearly 5 million uninsured Californians will suddenly have health coverage, due to the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare.
Sounds great, right? But having insurance doesn't guarantee Californians can actually get care - not if there is a shortage of caregivers.
SACRAMENTO — Legislation that would let optometrists, pharmacists and nurse practitioners perform medical tasks that now are the domain of doctors passed its first committee.
By George Skelton SACRAMENTO — Obamacare is supplying fresh ammunition for one of the oldest turf wars in Sacramento.
It pits doctors — represented by the politically powerful California Medical Assn. — defending their turf against other medical providers. They're nurse practitioners, optometrists and pharmacists.
By California Healthline On Tuesday, California doctors announced a package of five bills that aim to address the state's physician shortage, the Sacramento Business Journal report. The bills were unveiled at the California Medical Association's annual legislative conference (Robertson, Sacramento Business Journal, 4/16).
Today, California needs 2,000 more doctors. Tomorrow, it will need even more than that. Additional medical schools will help, but they won't help fast enough.
What California needs is an expansion of the duties of nurse practitioners, physician assistants, pharmacists, optometrists and other health professionals.
California doesn't have enough primary care physicians. Forty-two of its 58 counties fall short of the federal government's most basic standard. The state needs another 2,000 doctors, and the situation will get dramatically worse next year -- even in Silicon Valley -- when between 2-4 million Californians obtain health insurance under Obamacare and go looking for a doctor.
by: Laurel Rosenhall, Bee Capitol Bureau Citing a need for more medical professionals able to treat patients who will soon have health insurance under the federal Affordable Care Act, state Sen. Ed Hernandez on Wednesday introduced a package of bills to expand the services that optometrists, pharmacists and nurse practitioners can offer patients.
The so-called "scope of practice" bills set the stage for a massive fight with the state's physicians, who will look to protect their role as gatekeepers to medical care.
A California lawmaker proposes to allow some healthcare workers to expand their range of services in order to meet the new demand for health care under the Affordable Care Act. Democratic State Senator Ed Hernandez says there is already a limited number of family doctors in the state, especially in rural areas and inner cities.
And he says the health system must get ready to add as many as five million Californians to health coverage next year.
