Public health groups urge Congress to retain healthcare funding in final stimulus bill

The American College of Physicians and other advocacy groups are urging the House of Representatives and the Senate to provide adequate funding for critical healthcare concerns as they meet in conference to craft the final version of the economic stimulus bill.

"I urge conferees to come to an agreement that will provide adequate funding for critical healthcare issues - including coverage, health information technology, comparative effectiveness and primary care," said Jeffrey P. Harris, MD, president of the American College of Physicians. "These investments will provide short- and long-term benefits to the economy."

Harris laid out a list of requests that he urged House and Senate negotiators to adopt:

• Retain more than $20 billion in funding to help physicians and other clinicians acquire healthcare information technology for purposes such as quality reporting, prevention and coordination of care.
• Provide more than $1 billion in funding for comparative effectiveness research as a first step to creating and funding an independent entity to conduct rigorous, evidence-based evaluations of the effectiveness of different medical treatments.
• Retain the $600 million to fund training of primary care physicians under the National Health Services Corps and Title VII health professions programs that is included in the House bill.
• Include funding to help low-income unemployed persons keep their COBRA or enroll in Medicaid.

"The U.S. needs more than 16,000 additional primary care physicians to meet the needs of currently underserved areas of the country," said Harris. "Many more will be needed as coverage is expanded to additional persons. Studies show that primary care is consistently associated with better outcomes and lower costs of care, but there is a growing shortage of primary care doctors. The Senate regrettably left funding for primary care out of its bill."

More than 170 public health organizations also issued a letter to Congressional Conferees urging them to maintain the House-passed level of funding for prevention and wellness programs in the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act of 2009, as the final U.S. Senate version of the bill removed all funding for these programs.

"Thousands of public health jobs hang in the balance," said Jeff Levi, executive director of Trust for America's Health. "These public health workers are the ones we rely on to hold the community health safety net in place as the number of unemployed, uninsured, and underinsured Americans is growing by the day."

The funding in the House stimulus could directly save or create more than 20,000 public health jobs, Levi said. As states, local governments, and communities are hit with economic hard times, they have fired more than 11,000 public health workers and left over 10,000 jobs vacant, and at least as many layoffs are expected in the coming year.

"We should also remember that the funding for public health goes way beyond protecting and creating jobs," Levi said. "It's also a down payment toward reducing healthcare costs over the long term, keeping Americans healthier and more productive. Containing healthcare costs is one of the most important factors for improving the U.S. economy."

Harris said Congress need not choose between short-term measures to stimulate the economy and longer-term health care reforms.

"This is a false choice," said Harris. "We need to make sure that people who lose their jobs are able to obtain affordable coverage. We need to make the investments in health information technology, primary care, and effectiveness research that that will create jobs today - and make healthcare more affordable tomorrow."