Sanders' Plan to Hire More Black Health Care Professionals

[Donkees]

We must not only guarantee health care to all as a right, but also end the long-standing racial disparities that exist within the health care system. When we are in the White House, we will address the need for more black doctors, more black dentists, more black nurses, and more black mental health providers who can provide culturally competent care in their communities. We will:

🔷 Significantly expand the National Health Service Corps, Community Health Centers, and Teaching Health Centers to bring more doctors and nurses of color to underserved areas.

🔹The National Health Service Corps provides loan repayment to providers who work in underserved communities. Some 17 percent of doctors participating in the National Health Services Corps are African American. This program does an excellent job recruiting and training black doctors, nurse practitioners, and dentists. By expanding this program, we can significantly increase the number of black health care providers, and incentivize them to practice in underserved communities of color.

🔹We will dramatically expand access to community health centers which provide primary medical, dental, and mental health care, as well as low-cost prescription drugs, to more than 28 million Americans, 22 percent of whom are African American.

🔹We will significantly expand the Teaching Health Center Graduate Medical Education program to educate and train more African American primary care physicians to provide primary care in underserved communities of color.

🔷 Increase the number of nurses, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants and allow them to practice at the top of their license in order to increase the number of practitioners of color to provide culturally competent care in the communities they serve.

🔹In 2016, close to 13 percent of advanced practice registered nurses were African American. This is significantly higher than the 4 percent of black doctors that make up the US workforce.

🔹Nurse Practitioners and Physician Assistants play an important role in addressing our health care disparities. We will allow these health care providers to practice at the highest level of their training. This is critical if we are to address our primary health care workforce shortage, especially in underserved communities of color.

🔹In addition to expanding the National Health Service Corps, we will drastically expand the Nurse Practitioner Residency Training Program, and the Nurse Faculty Loan Program to develop the workforce we need.

🔷 Cancel student debt, which will disproportionately help black doctors and nurses.

🔹We will cancel the entire $1.6 trillion in outstanding student debt for the 45 million borrowers who are weighed down by the crushing burden of student debt. Not only will this proposal cut the racial wealth gap for young Americans by more than half– from 12:1 to 5:1, it will free up doctors and nurses to work in communities that need care the most.

https://berniesanders.com/end-racial-health-disparities/

[Uncle Joe]

1. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread Donkees.