The US Needs More Nurses, and the Crisis Is Bringing US Lawmakers Together

Bloomberg | By Lauren Coleman-Lochner
 
“Legislators on both the state and federal level are turning their attention to how to meaningfully address this issue that’s been plaguing health care for years and worsened during the pandemic. A bipartisan group of 14 US senators sent a letter to the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare last week seeking to extend an expiring program that helps poorer hospitals boost pay to retain workers.”
 
There’s a rare area of bipartisan agreement these days: the need for more government action to help fill the hundreds of thousands of vacancies for health-care workers.
 
Legislators on both the state and federal level are turning their attention to how to meaningfully address this issue that’s been plaguing health care for years and worsened during the pandemic. A bipartisan group of 14 US senators sent a letter to the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare last week seeking to extend an expiring program that helps poorer hospitals boost pay to retain workers.
 
The federal government has already taken some steps, including a $1.8 billion program to create 1,000 new residency slots in the next five years at hospitals in under-served communities. The Biden administration allotted $103 million from the American Rescue Plan to improve retention and well-being for health-care workers. Meanwhile, legislation introduced in Congress would boost residency slots, route more medical residents to under-served areas, and pause student loan obligations during residency. 
 
Another measure would grant tens of thousands of visas for doctors and nurses. 
 
“Certainly there are a lot of tools at the federal government’s disposal as well as at the state and local levels to deal with these issues,” said Zachary Baron, associate director of the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University in Washington, noting the broad bipartisan consensus to address the issue. 

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