One of the obstacles being faced by President Obama as he works to overhaul the health care system is the shortage of doctors across America. Our country is woefully unprepared for the number of primary care physicians that we will need as the American population ages. The problem is that fewer doctors are interested in doing primary care, since the medicare payments to primary care physicians are lower than those made to specialists. As a result, there's been a 51.8% decline in the number of medical school students going into primary care since 1997.
The American Academy of Family Physicians predicts that by 2020, we will be short 40,000 family physicians relative to what our nation will need by that time. The American Medical Association is one of the primary culprits in the doctor shortage. A 1994 article, as well as many conferences during the 80s and 90s, predicted a 165,000 surplus in the number of doctors by the year 2000. As a result, medical schools agreed to voluntarily restrict the supply of medical students entering their programs. The only problem was that the predicted surplus never occurred. Instead, we got a shortage.

Dr. Elaina George, a prominent physician out of Atlanta, says that the doctor shortage is going to have lasting consequences on the American public.

"In the short term, there will likely be a decrease in access since we will be unable to accommodate the increase in patients," says Dr. George, one of the few black doctors willing to discuss health care reform in public. "In the long term a patient will have to wait even longer to see a specialist."

One great challenge with health care reform is that the previously warped system created a set of special interests who all feel entitled to whatever they were receiving from the broken system. Specialists were overpaid due to their scarcity, and they now refuse to take a reduction in medicare payments to compensate for the shortage in primary care physicians. President Obama has to be strong and force some of these special interests to make the same sacrifices as the American people.

Here are some things that the Obama Administration can do to deal with the doctor shortage in America:

1) Increase medicare and medicaid payments to primary care physicians, and pay for the increase with a reduction in payments to specialists.

2) Increase the number of students enrolled in medical school. It makes no sense that there are strong students who apply to medical school every year, but are then denied because schools have chosen to restrict the supply of doctors to their own benefit.

3) Increase the use of Nurse Practitioners and Physician's Assistants. These individuals are highly trained and can do much of the work of a doctor without unnecessary cost.

4) Do something about malpractice insurance. Keep the limits on malpractice suits high enough to make a difference, but low enough that insurance rates are lower. This will keep doctors from leaving the profession due to the cost of insurance.

By making everyone do their part in the cost of health care reform, we can avoid a situation in which the fat cats get fatter, while the rest of America starves. President Obama already understands that there are tough decisions that need to be made. Hopefully, he and his fellow Democrats will be able to make them.

Dr. Boyce Watkins is a Finance Professor at Syracuse University and founder of the Your Black World Coalition. To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your email, please click here.