Lombardo's health care bill aims to fix doctor shortage in Nevada
Some of the bill's priorities include streamlining services across the state, expanding mental health services, and growing the workforce.
'Right now, Nevadans seeking medical care face long wait times and have trouble accessing specialists,' Lombardo said. 'The need for more doctors, nurses and health care providers is increasingly evident.'
Nevada holds one of the lowest doctor-to-patient ratios in the nation, ranking 48th in the country, according to 2023 data by the National Library of Medicine. The governor's bill looks to tackle the shortage by honing in on residency programs and increasing their funding.
'If you don't have the residency programs here in the state of Nevada, where are these graduates going to end up?' he asked.
Prior to the Governor's speech, Alison Netski, interim dean of UNLV's school of medicine, shared that only 42% of the school's graduating class have residencies in Nevada. Meanwhile, the other 58% are placed elsewhere and will be taking their education and experiences out of state.
First year UNLV medical student, Jacob Hoer, said he witnessed the phenomenon among his own friend group.
'There's certain programs that aren't available here, like ophthalmology, dermatology,' Hoer said. 'I have friends that want to go into that specialty, and they already know that unless something changes, they will have to leave the valley.'
However, the life-long Nevadan hopes to stay in state when it's time for his residency.
'I have family here. I have siblings that are also working in the medical field locally, so I would love to stay here,' Hoer said.
According to the governor's team, it will take at least a year to get the right infrastructure into place to see any results, if the bill is passed.
Lombardo's team also addressed House Republicans' recently unveiled Medicaid plan that would attach an 80-hour-per-month work requirement to benefits. Nevada Medicaid's Stacie Weeks said the new requirements will be damaging to the state.
'We're looking at how that would affect the program, but overall it is not as big in terms of cuts that we expected for the state, so that's the good news,' Weeks said.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Hamilton Spectator
10 hours ago
- Hamilton Spectator
States sue Trump, saying he is intimidating hospitals over gender-affirming care for youth
Seventeen Democratic officials accused President Donald Trump's administration of unlawfully intimidating health care providers into stopping gender-affirming care for transgender youth in a lawsuit filed Friday. The complaint comes after a month in which at least eight major hospitals and hospital systems — all in states where the care is allowed under state law — announced they were stopping or restricting the care . The latest announcement came Thursday from UI Health in Chicago. Trump's administration announced in July that it was sending subpoenas to providers and focusing on investigating them for fraud. It later boasted in a news release that hospitals are halting treatments. The Democratic officials say Trump's policies are an attempt to impose a nationwide ban on the treatment for people under 19 — and that's unlawful because there's no federal statute that bans providing the care to minors. The suit was filed by attorneys general from 15 states and the District of Columbia, plus the governor of Pennsylvania, in U.S. District Court in Boston. 'The federal government is running a cruel and targeted harassment campaign against providers who offer lawful, lifesaving care to children,' New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement. Trump and others who oppose the care say that it makes permanent changes that people who receive it could come to regret — and maintain that it's being driven by questionable science. Since 2021, 28 states with Republican-controlled legislatures have adopted policies to ban or restrict gender-affirming care for minors. In June, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states have a right to enforce those laws . For families with transgender children, the state laws and medical center policy changes have sparked urgent scrambles for treatment. The medical centers are responding to political and legal pressure The Center for Transyouth Health and Development at Children's Hospital Los Angeles, the biggest public provider of gender-affirming care for children in teens in the U.S., closed in July. At least seven other major hospitals and health systems have made similar announcements, including Children's National in Washington D.C., UChicago Medicine and Yale New Haven Health. Kaiser Permanente, which operates in California and several other states, said it would pause gender-affirming surgeries for those under 19 as of the end of August, but would continue hormone therapy. Connecticut Children's Medical Center cited 'an increasingly complex and evolving landscape' for winding down care. Other hospitals, including Penn State, had already made similar decisions since Trump returned to office in January. Alex Sheldon, executive director of GLMA, an organization that advocates for health care equity for LGBTQ+ people, said the health systems have pulled back the services for legal reasons, not medical ones. 'Not once has a hospital said they are ending care because it is not medically sound,' Sheldon said. Trump's administration has targeted the care in multiple ways Trump devoted a lot of attention to transgender people in his campaign last year as part of a growing pushback from conservatives as transgender people have gained visibility and acceptance on some fronts. Trump criticized gender-affirming care, transgender women in women's sports, and transgender women's use of women's facilities such as restrooms. On his inauguration day in January, Trump signed an executive order defining the sexes as only male and female for government purposes, setting the tone for a cascade of actions that affect transgender people. About a week later, Trump called to stop using federal money, including from Medicaid, for gender-affirming care for those under 19. About half of U.S. adults approve of Trump's handling of transgender issues, an AP-NORC poll found. But the American Medical Association says that gender is on a spectrum , and the group opposes policies that restrict access to gender-affirming health care. Gender-affirming care includes a range of medical and mental health services to support a person's gender identity, including when it's different from the sex they were assigned at birth. It includes counseling and treatment with medications that block puberty, and hormone therapy to produce physical changes, as well as surgery, which is rare for minors. In March, a judge paused enforcement of the ban on government spending for care. The court ruling didn't stop other federal government action In April, Attorney General Pam Bondi directed government investigators to focus on providers who continue to offer gender-affirming care for transgender youth. 'Under my leadership, the Department of Justice will bring these practices to an end,' she wrote. In May, the Department of Health and Human Services issued a report discouraging medical interventions for transgender youth and instead focusing solely on talk therapy. The report questions adolescents' capacity to consent to life-changing treatments that could result in future infertility. The administration has not said who wrote the report, which has been deeply criticized by LGBTQ+ advocates. In June, a Justice Department memo called for prioritizing civil investigations of those who provide the treatment. In July, Justice Department announced it had sent more than 20 subpoenas to doctors and clinics involved in gender-affirming care for youth, saying they were part of investigations of health care fraud, false statements and other possible wrongdoing. And in a statement last week, the White House celebrated decisions to end gender-affirming care, which it called a 'barbaric, pseudoscientific practice' Families worry about accessing care Kristen Salvatore's 15-year-old child started hormone therapy late last year at Penn State Health. Salvatore said in an interview with The Associated Press before the lawsuit was announced that it was a major factor in reduced signs of anxiety and depression. Last month, the family received official notice from the health system that it would no longer offer the hormones for patients under 19 after July 31, though talk therapy can continue. Salvatore has been struggling to find a place that's not hours away from their Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, home that would provide the hormones and accept Medicaid coverage. 'I'm walking around blind with no guidance, and whatever breadcrumbs I was given are to a dead-end alleyway,' she said. The family has enough testosterone stockpiled to last until January. But if they can't find a new provider by then, Salvatore's child could risk detransitioning, she said.
Boston Globe
11 hours ago
- Boston Globe
Researchers forecast what Trump's bill will mean for patients: Debt and delayed care
About 2.5 million people may no longer have a personal doctor. About 1.6 million patients will take on medical debt. The lack of care may cause nearly 22,000 deaths annually. 'There's really no questioning the basic reality that you can't take health care away from 10 million people without causing many preventable deaths,' said Dr. Adam Gaffney, lead researcher on a team that explored the new law's impact. Here's a deeper look at the research and challenges that could develop. Advertisement How the law may affect coverage It will become harder for many people to enroll in Medicaid or individual insurance plans and then stay covered. Medicaid is a state and federally funded program that covers care for people with low incomes. States will have to verify every six months whether someone remains eligible for Medicaid. That could cause coverage lapses for people with incomes that fluctuate or for those who move and miss renewal paperwork. Many also are expected to lose coverage as states require Medicaid recipients to work, volunteer or go to school unless exempted. Related : Enrollment in Medicaid has swelled in recent years. Republicans are cutting back in part to help fund tax breaks and pay for other priorities like border security. They also say they are trying to root out waste and fraud by rightsizing Medicaid for the population it was initially designed to serve — mainly pregnant women, the disabled and children. Advertisement People covered through the Affordable Care Act's individual insurance marketplaces also will see shorter enrollment windows and no more automatic renewals. About the research Gaffney, of Harvard Medical School, and other researchers looked to past studies to measure how many people would experience detrimental effects, like going without prescriptions, from the upcoming changes. Gaffney updated the published analysis, which was originally based on the House version of the bill, at the AP's request. One study in particular was critical for their work: In 2008, Oregon offered a rare opportunity to compare groups of people enrolled in Medicaid with those who were not. The price for a bottle of 60 tablets of Amanda Schlesier's prescription chemotherapy pill, Calquence, printed on a pharmacy statement. Paul Sancya/Associated Press After a four-year period of frozen enrollment due to budget limitations, the state determined it could enroll 10,000 more people in Medicaid. It used a lottery system to make the selection amid high demand. That gave researchers a chance to follow people who got coverage and those who did not, similar to how scientists testing a new drug might compare patients taking it to those given a placebo. 'This is a gold standard research design because it replicates a randomized-controlled trial,' said Christine Eibner, a senior economist at RAND Corp. who was not involved in the study. Related : Applying results from that study and other research to the recent CBO estimate allowed Gaffney and other researchers to estimate specific effects of losing coverage. 'By taking coverage away, we are putting patients in a terrible position,' said Gaffney, a former president of Physicians for a National Health Program. Care could grow complicated Amanda Schlesier went four days without her cancer treatment Calquence this spring and wound up in a local emergency room, delirious with pain. Advertisement The leukemia patient worries about what might happen if she stops treatment again for a longer stretch because she's lost Medicaid. 'God forbid I forget to fill out a page of documentation, and suddenly I lose access to my medication or my doctors or any of the treatment that I've been going through,' the 33-year-old Farmington Hills, Michigan, resident said. People can still receive care when they don't have coverage, but important steps often are delayed, said Dr. Gwen Nichols, chief medical officer of The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Patients may be able to visit a doctor, but they would have to line up coverage or help before they can receive expensive chemotherapy. Diagnosis also may be delayed. Meanwhile, the patient's cancer continues to grow. 'It's a ticking time bomb,' Nichols said. Preventive care may lapse The first thing patients often ditch when they lose coverage are screenings designed to catch health problems before they become serious, said Dr. Jen Brull, president of the American Academy of Family Physicians. That could mean patients skip tests for high cholesterol, which can contribute to heart disease, or colonoscopies that detect cancer. Researchers forecast that a half million fewer women will have gotten a mammogram within the past year by 2034. When patients struggle financially and lose coverage, they focus on things like keeping a place to live and food on their table, said Brull, a Fort Collins, Colorado, physician. 'Seeing a doctor because you don't want to get sick feels like a much lower priority,' Brull said. Dennis Heaphy, an advocate with the Massachusetts Disability Policy Consortium, said he would likely be in a nursing home without MassHealth support, during a panel at the Cambridge Health Alliance Revere Care Center on May 27. To his left, Governor Maura Healey and Senator Elizabeth Warren. To his right, Senator Ed Markey. Brett Phelps for The Boston Globe Financial pressure can build Patients start taking financial hits at all ends of care when they lose coverage. They may have to pay up front or start a payment plan before they receive care, said Erin Bradshaw, an executive vice president with the nonprofit Patient Advocate Foundation, which helps people with medical bills. Advertisement Anyone with an outstanding balance will have to pay it before the next appointment. Related : Financial assistance may be available, but patients don't always know about it. Getting help also may take time and require the submission of tax returns, pay stubs or some validation that the patient no longer has coverage. Bradshaw said letters stating that a patient has lost Medicaid sometimes arrive a couple months after the fact. That can contribute to treatment delays or missed medication doses. Some patients also try to avoid financial stress by skipping care. Schlesier said she delayed seeing a doctor when she first felt symptoms of her cancer returning because she had no coverage at the time. Staying on medications If prescriptions are too expensive, patients may simply not get them or split the doses to stretch the medicine. For Thomas Harper, it's a question of priorities. 'Sometimes you have to make a choice, how well do you want to eat this week versus taking your medicine,' he said. The West Monroe, Louisiana, truck driver has around $300 a month in prescriptions as he deals with diabetes and recovers from non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a type of blood cancer. Harper, 57, recently returned to work. That meant he lost Medicaid, which covered more of his prescription costs. He's balancing buying his meds with shopping for healthy food that keeps his blood sugar in check and builds his immune system. 'I'll survive, but I know there's people out there that cannot survive without Medicaid,' he said. AP video journalist Laura Bargfeld contributed to this report. Advertisement
The Hill
12 hours ago
- The Hill
Most adults do not plan on getting COVID-19 shot amid vaccine policy changes
More than half of American adults — 59 percent — say they do not expect to get the COVID-19 booster shot this autumn, according to new poll findings from healthcare policy group KFF. Poll results show that 23 percent of U.S. adults say they will 'probably not' get the vaccine, while 37 percent will 'definitely not' get the shot. Americans who said they will 'probably' or 'definitely' not get the shot were also more likely to say they think changes to U.S. vaccine policy are 'major' and will make people less safe. The data comes as the Trump administration makes drastic changes to the country's vaccine policy. Secretary for the Department of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced earlier this year that the COVID-19 shot will no longer be recommended for healthy children and pregnant women. Kennedy also abruptly fired all 17 members of an independent vaccine advisory panel for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in June. He then replaced the panel with eight hand-picked appointees, many of whom have expressed vaccine skepticism in the past. Adults who identify as Republicans are far less likely to plan on getting the vaccine compared to those who identify as Democrats. About six out of 10 Republicans said they would 'definitely not' get the shot compared to about one out of 10 Democrats, according to the poll. White adults are the most likely to say that they are against getting the vaccine once the colder months arrive with about four out of 10 admitting they will 'definitely not' get the shot. Meanwhile, 32 percent of Black adults say they will 'definitely not' get the COVID-19 vaccine this fall, along with 30 percent of adults who identify as Hispanic. Adults between the ages of 30 and 49 are the most likely to say that they do not plan on getting the vaccine, with 42 percent of that age group saying they will 'definitely not' get the shot in the fall. The U.S. appears to be experiencing another summer wave of COVID-19 cases. As of July 29, COVID-19 infections are growing or likely growing in 40 states, including Florida, Texas, and New York, according to the CDC. The KFF poll was conducted via a national representative survey of about 1,300 people between July 8-14.
