Primary Care in the USA: The Long Struggle to Build its Foundational Role

Family practice was recognized as the 20th specialty in American medicine in 1969. With the hope that primary care would become the foundation of an improved health care system, vigorous efforts were launched in medical education, research and practice to achieve that goal. This chapter traces the history of that effort, together with negative system changes that have obstructed that goal. Although primary care physicians have been shown to improve access to care, contain costs, decrease inequities, and improve patient outcomes, they are still too few in number to meet national needs for primary care. The COVID-19 pandemic revealed the extent of inadequacy and vulnerability of the system. The U. S. still lacks a system of universal access as has been in place for many years in most other advanced countries around the world. Corporate stakeholders in a largely privatized financing and delivery system continue to challenge the future of primary care. Lessons from the failure of reform initiatives over the last 50 years are discussed, as are current reform alternatives, only one of which would at last bring universal access to health care in this country.