Professional's Access to Health Workforce Integration Act

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. ROYBAL-ALLARD. Mr. Speaker, I rise to introduce the Professional's Access to Health Workforce Integration Act, better known as the PATH Workforce Integration Act, of 2015.

The National Center for Health Workforce Analysis predicts that, by 2020, the United States will have a shortage of as high as 20,000 physicians. Other projections are that we will have a shortage of up to 250,000 public health workers. In addition, the Department of Labor projects that, by the year 2025, we will need 500,000 more nurses, 46,000 more mental and behavioral health workers, 38,000 more pharmacists, and 15,000 more dentists.

There are a number of contributing factors to the projected health care workforce shortage. The U.S. population by 2030 is expected to rise by 18 percent. The population of those over the age of 65 is expected to increase three times its current rate, and the Bureau of Health Professions projects a 5.2 percent increase in the utilization of health services. This is all happening while our current health care workforce is retiring in greater numbers than we are able to graduate new workers.

While it is true the Affordable Care Act incorporated numerous provisions for addressing the workforce shortage, our Nation's current educational infrastructure lacks the capacity to train health care professionals fast enough to fill the projected health workforce shortages. In our country today, we have internationally trained health professionals, residing legally in the United States, who are unable to work in their chosen profession. They currently represent a missed opportunity to address our health care workforce shortages.

The PATH Act helps to address this shortage by providing the over 2 million foreign-trained health professionals legally residing in the United States the guidance that they need to work in employment matching their health professional skills, education, and expertise. This includes internationally trained doctors, nurses, dentists, mental health providers, and pharmacists whose linguistic and cultural skills will also help improve the health needs of our diversifying Nation.

What the PATH Act would do is facilitate counseling and training opportunities to reduce barriers to the health workforce; provide access to accelerated courses in English as a second language; provide assistance in the evaluation of foreign credentials; and help in educating employers about the competency of health professionals trained outside of the U.S.

Mr. Speaker, our health care system is rapidly approaching a crisis due to a lack of qualified health professionals. The PATH Act of 2015 will help prevent this crisis, and I encourage my colleagues to cosponsor this important legislation.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source