Reform plan needs primary care doctors

Fixing our broken health care system will require much more than handing every uninsured American an insurance plan.

Health care legislation must ensure that everyone has access to a primary care physician. But right now we have a looming shortage of primary care physicians.

A reformed health care system must pay primary care physicians for all their work if we want medical students to choose careers as primary care physicians. Primary care physicians - family physicians, internists, geriatricians and pediatricians are needed to care for our growing and aging population.

Congress must act now, because any legislation passed this year will still take years to truly make an impact. It will be at least five to seven years before today's medical students are practicing physicians. We need reform now so that today's students will choose to be primary care physicians tomorrow. It's time to stop playing politics and solve the health care crisis.

Vincent D. Keenan

Illinois Academy of Family Physicians

Lisle