Primary Care as a Public Utility

Infographic showing primary care as a public utility, with funding pipes flowing into a shared “Primary Care Common Fund” tank. The graphic contrasts fragmented care today with a coordinated system supporting community clinics, independent practices, medical groups, and rural health care, alongside illustrations of diverse patients, families, and clinicians. Source citation at bottom references a 2026 JAMA article by Song, Altman, Crichlow, and Grumbach.

More than one-third of US adults lack access to primary care, which has increasingly become a commodity rather than the common good envisioned by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Many states are working to bolster primary care, but face common challenges related to federalism, fragmentation of health insurance, and administrative hurdles that undermine their efforts to invest in primary care. These challenges are discussed and one potential solution is described: a primary care common fund that finances and pays for primary care from the perspective of a public utility.

Read the JAMA article: Primary Care as a Public Utility

 

2026
https://profiles.ucsf.edu/kevin.grumbach

Zirui Song; Wayne Altman; Renee Crichlow, Kevin Grumbach