Question

A growing aging population, along with increased access to health insurance，will create the need for about 52,000 more primary care doctors in the US by the year 2025, according to a new study.

The researchers want to estimate how many such doctors the US health care system would need after the passage of the Affordable Care Act (法令) in 2010, which will give an estimated 34 million more Americans access to health insurance.

But Dr. Winston Liaw, one of the study’s authors, said the biggest need will not come from the fact that more people have health insurance. “A lot of increase is going to be from population growth. That’s going to be the largest driver. Then, a smaller percentage is actually going to be from insurance expansion,” said Liaw, who was a fellow at Washington’s Robert Graham Center when the study was written.

Liaw and his workmates, who published their findings in the Annals of Family Medicine, use several databases to estimate how many primary care doctors there are in the US and how many people visit them. They then use that information with additional data from the United States Census Bureau to estimate how many doctors will be needed as the population grows, ages and gains more access to health insurance.

In 2008, the researchers estimated that people made 462 million office visits to primary care doctors. They estimate that the number will grow to 565 million by 2025. That additional use, they said, will require a 3 percent increase in the current primary care doctor workforce, or an additional 52,000 doctors or so. “That number is an expectation of how many we’ll need in addition to how many we have today,” said Liaw, now at Virginia Common-wealth University.

Of those, 33,000 doctors are needed to account for population growth, 10,000 for the aging population and more than 8,000 for increased insurance access.

“The fact that they made separate estimates of the increased demands for primary care services that might be due to population growth on the one hand, aging of the population and thirdly the Affordable Care Act is a very useful addition to this area, ” said Dr. John Rowe of the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health in New York.

The study, however, cannot say whether or not there will be enough doctors to satisfy the additional need, said Liaw. For that ,he added, they would also have to look at how many people are expected to graduate from medical school and how many doctors will retire in his next studies.

64. The demand for more primary care doctors is mainly due to ________.

A. passing the medical act in 2010                       B. free access to health insurance

C. the population explosion                                  D. the aging population

65. According to the study, how many primary care doctors are there now in the US?

A. About 1.7 million                                   B. About 4.6 million    

C. About 5.2 million                                   D. About 5.6 million

66. What is the key information the author wants to give in the last paragraph?

A. More studies are needed before reaching a final conclusion.

B. The new act will meet all Americans’ medical requirements.

C. The author encourages more people to attend medical school.

D. Further additions to doctors’ pay may take the form of bonus payments.

Answer 1

CAA