Rural areas need more health care investment

This commentary from the Moscow-Pullman Daily News does not necessarily reflect the view of The Spokesman-Review’s editorial board.

There is no reason rural areas in the West can’t have the same quality medical care as urban areas. Yet that is not the case in some parts of states like Idaho and Washington.

With baby boomers – including doctors – retiring by the millions, there is an increasing need for more health care practitioners in underserved areas.

According to the National Center for Biotechnic Information, about 20 percent of the U.S. population, about 50 million, live in rural locations, while only 9 percent of the nation’s physicians practice there.

The WWAMI program has been working on the shortage problem since its founding 40 years ago.

The Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana and Idaho regional medical program is run through the University of Washington School of Medicine and includes students whose tuition is, in part, subsidized by the five states.

The students attend their first year of medical school at their home-state universities. On the Palouse, that’s the University of Idaho and Washington State University. Their second year is spent in Seattle. They then have several options in completing their medical education.

A medical education isn’t cheap. Physicians starting out can expect to do so with more than $150,000 in debt.

Unless some of that debt is subsidized, newly minted doctors are forced to urban areas, where they can specialize in a more lucrative practice.

Rural practitioners won’t get rich with many of their patients on Medicaid and Medicare. Their reward will be knowing they made a difference in the lives of rural residents.

There are more applicants than seats in the WWAMI program, a problem to be solved by the state appropriating more money to fund extra students. The average state support for a WWAMI student was $41,877 in 2011.

Last year, 149 people competed for the 20 seats reserved for Idaho students. Statistically, only 49 percent of Idaho graduates return to practice in the state. That’s not many for a state with a population of more than 1.5 million.

The Idaho Legislature has toyed with increasing the number of spots for years but has failed to do so, claiming a poor economy.

We, however, look at the $42,000 a year per student as a much needed investment in rural Idaho health care.