A report (PDF – 49 pages) commissioned by the Physicians Foundation (PAI), a national health care organization that represents the interests of physicians, raises new questions about the role of socioeconomic determinants as they relate to access, quality, and cost of medical care in the United States. The report, prepared by a team of noted physicians and economists headed by Richard “Buz” Cooper, MD, Professor of Medicine and Senior Fellow at the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics, University of Pennsylvania, was sent to the President and Congress today in order to contribute to the national health care debate.

“It is essential that in order to pass meaningful health care system reform that the issues be fully debated with factual information,” PAI Treasurer and NCMS EVP, CEO Robert W. Seligson said. “Studies like this help put the debate at the forefront.”

“We are at a rare moment in history when important decisions are being made that will impact doctors, their patients and the entire health care delivery system for many years to come, if not forever,” Physicians Foundation President, Lou Goodman, PhD, said.

The report, entitled Physicians and their Practices under Health Care Reform, highlights several important concerns that the report’s authors believe have been left out of the health care discussion, including: the growing problem of physician shortages, the changes in physicians’ practices that will be necessary in a reformed health care system, and the pervasive effects of poverty and other social determinants which impact variation in access, quality and cost of care.

You can read the full report at www.physiciansfoundation.org. There is an executive summary at the beginning of the report. The report and an accompanying news release are available at NCMS Online.