Increase Funding for Graduate Medical Education (GME) and Number of Positions for Training Future Physicians

With the Affordable Care Act, there will be an increased demand for physicians to care for the increased, insured, population. To address the issue, which was estimated years ago, medical schools across the nation have increased class sizes. Unfortunately, the number of residency positions, in order to train new medical graduates, have stayed status quo. In addition, with the underlying debt of the nation, Medicare is unable to cover more positions for graduate medical education. Therefore, I propose that insurance companies be mandated to pay at least half of the salary for residents, whose average salary can be $47,000/year. Let insurance companies take a stake in the quality of health of their insurers, by funding a quality training for the physicians who will take care of them.