Today, a press release from the White House revealed that Vice President Kamala Harris will announce a $1.5 billion investment to help grow and diversify the nation’s healthcare workforce and boost equitable healthcare in the communities that need it most during the COVID-19 pandemic and in the future.
The release states that “These awards are supporting the National Health Service Corps, Nurse Corps, and Substance Use Disorder Treatment and Recovery programs. These programs address workforce shortages and health disparities by providing scholarship and loan repayment funding for healthcare students and professionals, in exchange for a service commitment in hard-hit and high-risk communities.”
According to the release, the funding comes from the American Rescue plan and will support over 22,700 providers.
More than 23.6 million patients in the U.S. receive care from National Health Service Corps and Nurse Corps clinicians, the release states. During the pandemic, thousands of these health providers have served in community health centers and hospitals caring for COVID-19 patients, administering COVID-19 tests and treatments, administering vaccinations, and also supported the mental health of their communities.
“Only about seven percent of physicians in the United States identify as Black or Hispanic/Latino despite the fact that Black and Hispanic/Latino Americans account for 31 percent of the nation’s total population,” the release continues. “Over 25 percent of physicians serving through the National Health Service Corps identify as Black or Hispanic/Latino. The mobilization of these providers is a critical step towards addressing racial and ethnic disparities in health outcomes and expanding the representation of these communities in healthcare professions.”
That said, “Further, the United States is projected to face a shortage of almost 60,000 primary care doctors, dentists, and psychiatrists over the next decade, and needs an estimated 158,000 new nurses to graduate every year for the rest of the decade. A substantial barrier in meeting these healthcare needs is the student debt associated with graduate health education, which can average more than $200,000 per student and prevent students from underserved communities from even considering a career in healthcare professions. To further support the expansion of primary care, the Administration also plans to begin awarding $330 million in American Rescue Plan funding for Teaching Health Center Graduate Medical Education. This additional funding will further support the expansion of the primary care physician and dental workforce in underserved communities through community-based primary care residency programs in family medicine, internal medicine, pediatrics, internal medicine-pediatrics, psychiatry, obstetrics and gynecology, general dentistry, pediatric dentistry, or geriatrics.”
The release explains that today’s announcements respond to the recommendations of the Presidential COVID-19 Health Equity Task Force—which submitted its final report to the White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator earlier in the month. During the Vice President’s final year in the Senate, she introduced a bill that became an outline for the President’s formation of this Task Force.
The release concludes that “Additionally, this funding builds on the billions of dollars in investments the Biden-Harris Administration has already awarded for equity focused programs and initiatives over the past 10 months, including $785 million the Administration announced earlier this month to continue keeping equity centered in our COVID-19 response.”
