Bleak House: Family medicine and the great budget debate, day one
Texas lawmakers got their first chance to comment on the first draft of the House budget for 2012-2013 today, when Appropriations Chair Jim Pitts took questions on the floor. The draft budget is $31.1 billion slimmer than the state’s current budget, coming in at $156.5 billion in all funds. That means general revenue plus federal matching funds.
The capitol press corps was in fine form, tweeting and texting a constant stream of budget-related news, and filing stories at a fevered pace. Check out the Texas Tribune’s coverage for a healthy dose.
Several lawmakers were upset over the proposed closure of four community colleges, and massive cuts to public education got a lot of play as well. Lost amid the critiques and complaints was the proposed fate of a set of programs designed to strengthen primary care.
The House budget would eliminate $26.8 million that support family medicine residency programs through the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. A year ago, we published a story in Texas Family Physician about the closure of the Kelsey Seybold Family Medicine Residency Program in Houston that detailed the budgetary difficulty afflicting such programs. These funds, while not a great amount, go directly to the programs, unlike federal GME funding, which the programs must cajole out of their affiliated teaching hospitals. And these funds advocated by TAFP and protected by the coordinating board specifically support the residency training of primary care physicians.
GME formula funding took a hit, too. That money goes to the state’s medical schools, which in turn use it to support their residency programs. Total state spending on GME in 2010-2011 was $118.4 million, but in the draft for 2012-2013, it was cut down to $66.3 million.
Another victim: the Statewide Primary Care Preceptorship Program, which places medical students in primary care clinics so they can experience the joy and excitement of frontline medicine. The draft budget defunded the program.
And then there’s TAFP’s crowning achievement of the 81st Legislature, the Physician Education Loan Repayment Program, which provides up to $160,000 for physicians who serve in health professional shortage areas for four years. The program was zeroed out in the draft budget.
For years now, we’ve been engaged in a debate about improving the quality of care patients receive while controlling the cost of that care through system reforms intended to increase access to primary medical care. These programs are some of our great achievements in pursuit of that goal. In their place, the Legislative Budget Board recommended that the state grant nurse practitioners the authority to diagnose and prescribe without any physician collaboration or supervision.
“Allowing APRNs to diagnose and prescribe up to the limits of their education and certification would allow them to provide lower-cost primary care for patients within their professional scope,” the LBB advised in a report released with the draft budget.
As Chairman Pitts reminded lawmakers on the floor this morning, this budget is only a draft, and there’s a long way to go before this thing’s a done deal, but it’s a stark beginning to what is certain to be a tough session.
– Jonathan N