Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I rise to join my colleague, General Bergman, in support of our bill, H.R. 3262, the Grow Our Own Directive: Physician Assistant Employment and Education Act of 2017. The Department of Veterans Affairs and the entire Nation are experiencing a shortage of quality physicians and healthcare providers. For doctors alone, the Association of American Medical Colleges estimates that, by 2030, the country could face a doctor shortage of over 100,000 physicians. Access to care will only become a harder problem to solve the longer it takes to be addressed. Nonphysician providers, like physician assistants, are an important part of the solution to this shortage. Physician assistants are highly trained providers that often focus their training on specialties like psychiatry, orthopedics, and internal medicine. It is fitting that my bill would help get more PAs into the VA to serve veterans. After all, the profession started when a small group of four Navy corpsmen completed the first PA program started at Duke University. That first program was based on the fast-tracked training of doctors during World War II. Veterans and the military have always been a part of the physician assistant profession. The PA workforce offers unique value to rural and underserved areas. In places like northern New Hampshire, in my district, PAs help resolve shortages for family physicians and primary care physicians, shortages that have existed for decades.…”