The infrastructure discussions in Congress now reportedly include the possibility of Medicare funding additional graduate medical education training slots. This on the heels of an additional 1,000 new Medicare-supported GME positions that were added in the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021, which was the first increase of its kind in nearly 25 years. 

We reported here that new legislation - the Resident Physician Shortage Reduction Act of 2021 - had recently been introduced to gradually raise the number of Medicare-supported GME positions by 2,000 per year for seven years, for a total of 14,000 new slots. 

Reports indicate that House Ways & Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal is supportive of the increase of GME-funded slots. It appears that infrastructure funding could offer a way to accomplish that.