VIDEO: Harder Urges the Department of Education to Fix Valley Doctor Shortage During Hearing

WASHINGTON — Today, Representative Josh Harder (CA-10) spoke during a critical Department of Education hearing on behalf of his work with Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) to urge Department of Education Secretary Miguel Cardona to urge an immediate fix an oversight in the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program that currently bars doctors in California and Texas from having their loans forgiven. This comes after the two sent a letter to the Secretary on Monday demanding he fix the oversight. The California Medical Association (CMA) estimates fixing this oversight could bring 10,000 physicians to the state over the next decade.

Video of Rep. Harder's remarks is available online here

Rep. Harder & Sen. Feinstein's letter is available online here.

According to a recent report from the governor's office, the Bay Area has 411 medical doctors per 100,000 people while the Central Valley has just 157 medical doctors per 100,000 people. That means it is more than two and a half times more difficult for a family in the Valley to find a doctor than the same family in San Francisco. Rep. Harder has built a bipartisan coalition that is working together to fix this program including 67 of his colleagues. His bill, the bipartisan, bicameral Stopping Doctor Shortages Act, will enshrine this fix into law.

Read Rep. Harder's remarks below.

Today I want to talk about one of the most critical challenges facing my community in the Central Valley – access to health care. Right now there are 157 medical doctors for every 100,000 residents in the Central Valley. Just over the Altamont in the Bay area, there are 411 per 100,000 residents.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to explain why the wealthy folks in the Bay have more than two and a half times the amount of doctors nearby as my agricultural community in the Valley has.

That disparity – having two and a half times fewer doctors as the folks in the Bay – just crushed my community during the pandemic. This winter our ICU capacity was at 0% during the peak of COVID. It wasn't because we didn't have enough beds for the folks who were sick, it was because we didn't have enough doctors and nurses to actually care for them.

In my community people wait months to see specialists, and then when they finally do get an appointment, they have to drive hours to their doctor's office. That makes getting care simply out of reach for thousands of hard working families.

So, I'm here today to advocate for a commonsense and tremendously impactful solution to the doctor shortage my community is facing. This isn't a pie in the sky, Hail Mary type fix. It's easy, we know how to do it, and we know how many doctors it will bring home.

The Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program was created almost 15 years ago to encourage people with student debt, especially doctors, to enter high-demand fields in the public sector,. For doctors, it says that if you work in a non-profit hospital for 10 years, we'll forgive your student loans. For communities just like mine that are facing crippling doctor shortages, that just makes sense.

But that doesn't happen in California or Texas right now because of an accidental oversight in a regulation that limited the eligibility for the program. The regulation applied to doctors directly employed by hospitals which is not always the case for doctors working in non-profit hospitals in both California and Texas, precluding them from getting any student loan forgiveness. When the average med student has more than $250,000 in debt, that's a major deterrent to practicing medicine in the Valley.

I'm here today to tell you that you have the power as an agency to fix this. With a stroke of the pen, you could change the rule, let doctors in California and Texas get their student loans forgiven, and bring thousands of new doctors to communities like mine. That is why I sent a bipartisan and bicameral letter to the Department of Education in September, signed by 67 of my colleagues, pushing the Department to rectify this error. I have a bill in Congress that provides the framework for how to make this fix and will codify that change into law, but first I'm asking you to fix it within your agency today.

If we do this together, we'll bring 10,000 new doctors to California over the next 10 years and deliver health care to so many folks who need it. That's what my community and so many others need. So let's get it done. Thank you.

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