Trump’s newest attack on rural hospitals
The Trump GOP’s Medicaid cuts will cause many rural hospitals to close. Now, Trump has come up with a way to hasten that process.
“NBC News medical analyst Dr. Vin Gupta warned of the consequences that President Donald Trump’s imposed $100,000 annual visa fee for highly skilled foreign workers could have on those seeking health care in the U.S., especially those living in Republican states.
“This is going to have significant impacts, not just in the short term, but very much in the medium term here and that’s the irony of a lot of these policies, they’ll impact red states, and it’s not going to be felt immediately,” Gupta said in a Friday interview with MeidasTouch.”
In addition to four years in medical school, American med school grads need at least one year of internship/residency to legally practice. For most graduates, the crushing burden of student loans, particularly if they also took out college loans, means they need to train in a highly compensated specialty. For this reason, primary care practices—family medicine, general internal medicine, general pediatrics, geriatrics, obstetrics and gynecology (OB-GYN), and combined internal medicine/pediatrics—are increasingly staffed by foreign medical school graduates, who arrive in America with H-1B visas and less debt. Raising the fees nearly 100-fold will be prohibitively expensive for community hospitals where many of these foreign grads have landed.
“Gupta mentioned that the “irony” is that the policy is “probably going to impact red states more than blue states,” saying that in red states, there are more community hospitals, rural hospitals and “frankly, more places where American medical grads tend not to gravitate towards.”
“Gupta went on to say foreign medical graduates will likely pursue training and careers in countries where “they’ll get paid,” “be more welcome,” and “their path will be a lot easier.”
H-1B visa fee increase will harm rural hospitals
“NBC News medical analyst Dr. Vin Gupta warned of the consequences that President Donald Trump’s imposed $100,000 annual visa fee for highly skilled foreign workers could have on those seeking health care in the U.S., especially those living in Republican states.
“This is going to have significant impacts, not just in the short term, but very much in the medium term here and that’s the irony of a lot of these policies, they’ll impact red states, and it’s not going to be felt immediately,” Gupta said in a Friday interview with MeidasTouch.”
In addition to four years in medical school, American med school grads need at least one year of internship/residency to legally practice. For most graduates, the crushing burden of student loans, particularly if they also took out college loans, means they need to train in a highly compensated specialty. For this reason, primary care practices—family medicine, general internal medicine, general pediatrics, geriatrics, obstetrics and gynecology (OB-GYN), and combined internal medicine/pediatrics—are increasingly staffed by foreign medical school graduates, who arrive in America with H-1B visas and less debt. Raising the fees nearly 100-fold will be prohibitively expensive for community hospitals where many of these foreign grads have landed.
“Gupta mentioned that the “irony” is that the policy is “probably going to impact red states more than blue states,” saying that in red states, there are more community hospitals, rural hospitals and “frankly, more places where American medical grads tend not to gravitate towards.”
“Gupta went on to say foreign medical graduates will likely pursue training and careers in countries where “they’ll get paid,” “be more welcome,” and “their path will be a lot easier.”
H-1B visa fee increase will harm rural hospitals
I wondered about that. Can those foreign trained doctors simply immigrate–legally– to the US? I am thinking that might be the direction rural hospitals go. I know that many of the physicians practicing in rural and not so rural parts of Wisconsin, come from India and seem to have settled here permanently. I believe that the purpose was to undercut tech companies ability to use cheap foreign talent instead of expensive US talent but with respect to doctors it is sort of like field workers–no US born physician wants to practice general medicine in a rural area, just like no US born white folks want to pick cucumbers.
@Terry,
There are alternative pathways for foreign med school grads to practice in the US. Not clear to me that they are as good as H-1B. And given the way immigrants, even those here legally, have been brutalized recently under the Trump Administration, I doubt there’s much incentive.
Immigration information for international medical graduates
Terry:
In terms of what?
Direct Labor cost?
Benefits: Healthcare Insurance, Social Security, Workmans Comp., Unemployment Insurance, Retirement Plan, Vacation time, work place safety, 401k, etc.
Companies avoid the bennies by hiring nondocumented labor. The benefits typically cost more than the direct labor in manufacturing which is usually 10% of the cost.
Rather than kick the undocumented labor out of the country, Tr_mp should be forcing the companies to provide the benefits or pay them more so they can aford the benefits.
Direct Labor cost in manufacturing, etc. is less than Indirect Costs for Labor
Reminds me of (and hopefully not too far out of topic) the Paradox of the Chinese Restaurants, icon of good old days 1950s American holidays: people came here from the East to make a better life for their families and they did, working in the backroom of a Chinese restaurant. And now their kids are grown and gone with college degrees and BMWs and they’re not gonna’ work in a Chinese restaurant. What haven’t gone high-end, yuppified, fusion. Maybe because I come from a different place and am still entirely comfortable here but I see it the “Mexican” restaurants in the Northeast, owned mostly by Puerto Rican and Cuban families but staffed by Mesoamericans. Soon they’ll close
Headlining this (ping) as half a hospital headline link (later today) …
Those that haven’t closed have gone high-end, and I’m still not entirely comfortable here
@Eric,
I trashed your comment for being off-topic. The topic of my post is healthcare access in rural hospitals, not IT professionals.
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