[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 7]
[House]
[Pages 9133-9134]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1030
       PROFESSIONAL'S ACCESS TO HEALTH WORKFORCE INTEGRATION ACT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from 
California (Ms. Roybal-Allard) for 5 minutes.
  Ms. ROYBAL-ALLARD. Mr. Speaker, I rise to introduce the 
Professional's Access to Health Workforce Integration Act, better known 
as the PATH Workforce Integration Act, of 2015.
  The National Center for Health Workforce Analysis predicts that, by 
2020, the United States will have a shortage of as high as 20,000 
physicians. Other projections are that we will have a shortage of up to 
250,000 public health workers. In addition, the Department of Labor 
projects that, by the year 2025, we will need 500,000 more nurses, 
46,000 more mental and behavioral health workers, 38,000 more 
pharmacists, and 15,000 more dentists.
  There are a number of contributing factors to the projected health 
care workforce shortage. The U.S. population by 2030 is expected to 
rise by 18 percent. The population of those over the age of 65 is 
expected to increase three times its current rate, and the Bureau of 
Health Professions projects a 5.2 percent increase in the utilization 
of health services. This is all happening while our current health care 
workforce is retiring in greater numbers than we are able to graduate 
new workers.
  While it is true the Affordable Care Act incorporated numerous 
provisions for addressing the workforce shortage, our Nation's current 
educational infrastructure lacks the capacity to train health care 
professionals fast enough to fill the projected health workforce 
shortages. In our country today, we have internationally trained health 
professionals, residing legally in the United States, who are unable to 
work in their chosen profession. They currently represent a missed 
opportunity to address our health care workforce shortages.
  The PATH Act helps to address this shortage by providing the over 2 
million foreign-trained health professionals legally residing in the 
United

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States the guidance that they need to work in employment matching their 
health professional skills, education, and expertise. This includes 
internationally trained doctors, nurses, dentists, mental health 
providers, and pharmacists whose linguistic and cultural skills will 
also help improve the health needs of our diversifying Nation.
  What the PATH Act would do is facilitate counseling and training 
opportunities to reduce barriers to the health workforce; provide 
access to accelerated courses in English as a second language; provide 
assistance in the evaluation of foreign credentials; and help in 
educating employers about the competency of health professionals 
trained outside of the U.S.
  Mr. Speaker, our health care system is rapidly approaching a crisis 
due to a lack of qualified health professionals. The PATH Act of 2015 
will help prevent this crisis, and I encourage my colleagues to 
cosponsor this important legislation.

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