Idaho Lawmakers Seek More State-Sponsored Medical School Seats to Address Rural Health Care Needs

Some Idaho lawmakers and education officials are concerned that Gov. Dirk Kempthorne's (R) proposed budget does not call for an increase in the "number of medical school seats the state subsidizes at the University of Washington and the University of Utah," the AP/Spokane Spokesman-Review reports. Idaho has the worst ratio of primary care providers to population in the country, and faces an increasingly aging medical population, according to the Spokesman-Review. However, it only subsidizes 22 new students a year to attend medical schools in Washington and Utah, compared to 25 in 1980. As a result, a state Commerce Department report states that rural communities have difficulty "maintaining sustainable health care systems." Health care and education professionals believe that increasing the number of state-sponsored medical seats would mitigate this problem, and have called for eight additional medical seats at a total cost of nearly $1 million a year, and three additional dental seats at a total cost of $350,000. The AP/Spokesman-Review reports that about 50% of Idaho residents who participate in the Washington program return to practice in Idaho. According to Dr. Michael Laskowski, head of the Washington program in Idaho, this retention rate is much higher than that of students who attend private schools, whose high debts often preclude them from returning to practice in Idaho. In addition, those who participate in the Washington program have the opportunity to spend their third and fourth year of school in a rural Idaho setting, and the University of Utah is developing a similar program. House Appropriations Chair Maxine Bell said that she had hoped the governor's budgets would have increased the number of medical seats. "It goes along with everything we're doing. And it's the right thing to do," she said (AP/Spokane Spokesman Review, 1/28). The Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report is published for kaisernetwork.org, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, by National Journal Group Inc.
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