Primary care in the US is in precarious shape. The fragile state of primary care contributes to the US having the worst health outcomes of all high-income nations while spending 50% more on health care per capita. Despite abundant research demonstrating that a well-supported foundation of primary care is associated with better health outcomes and health equity, as well as lower health care costs, the US has neglected this critical sector. Only about 5% of US health expenditures are spent on primary care—half or less than the proportion spent in Canada and Europe and insufficient to provide the services needed and make primary care an attractive career. The profit-oriented, market-based US health system does not promote primary care as a common good and serves as a structural barrier to reaping primary care’s benefits.
This Lancet Webinar highlights the crisis of primary care and the bold policy actions needed to revitalize primary care. Dr Kevin Grumbach, a US family physician, reviews the state of primary care in the US and discusses his proposal for Primary Care for All—a tax-financed single-player system of universal coverage specifically for primary care funded at twice the level of current spending on primary care in the US. Dr Rebecca Fisher, a UK general practitioner and policy advisor, offers lessons from the British National Health Service—both its strengths and its stresses under UK austerity policies—that can inform efforts to strengthen primary care in the US under a universal program. Ms Yunina Graham, a US primary care patient activist, shares her views on the critical importance of high-quality primary care and how patients and the public should partner with clinicians and other primary care workers in a social movement to drive policy changes to revitalize primary care.
[Recorded May 11, 2023]
Visit The Lancet at https://www.thelancet.com/?dgcid=youtube_video_lancet
* * *
Continue this conversation on social! Follow us today at…
https://Twitter.com/TheLancet
https://Facebook.com/TheLancetMedicalJournal
https://Instagram.com/TheLancetGroup
https://LinkedIn.com/company/The-Lancet
source
