March 2000 • Volume 6 • Number 3
Administration's budget plan for family practice training in 2001: $0
For the second year in a row, the Clinton administration has "zeroed out" family practice training funds in the proposed Title VII budget.
The budget would boost spending for the National Institutes of Health to $18.8 billion, giving NIH a 5.6 percent increase. But the budget would eliminate Title VII funds for primary care training, including family practice training.
"You cannot have state-of-the-art medical care without state-of-the-art medical training," said AAFP President Bruce Bagley, M.D., of Albany, N.Y., in a news release Feb. 7, the day Bill Clinton released his proposed budget for 2001.
Forty-two percent of graduates of family practice programs funded by Title VII entered practice in medically underserved communities in fiscal year 1999, according to the Health Resources and Services Administration. That figure is three to four times higher than the percentage of all health professionals who entered practice in underserved areas.
"To get health care to the American families who need it most, we need more training for family physicians," said Bagley. "The proposed Clinton budget takes us in the wrong direction, and it must be fixed."
For 1999, the specialty's Title VII funds were $50.5 million. For 2000, although the administration called for no funding, the specialty will receive about $49.5 million because of Congress' support.
For fiscal year 2001, the Academy has already begun lobbying to maintain federal backing for family physicians' training.
About one-third of family practice residencies applying for and qualifying for Title VII funds last year were funded. The other 44 applicant residencies met the underserved preference criteria, but no federal funds were available for those programs.
Bagley objected, "Funding should not be cut; it should be increased."
FP Report is published by the AAFP News Department.
Copyright © 2000 by American Academy of Family Physicians.
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