We ask for your consideration of student loan debt forgiveness for healthcare providers working to protect you and all of your citizens in this time of panic and uncertainty. This would improve the quality and accessibility of healthcare across the country, as well as safeguard the opportunities available for the individuals working to keep our country safe.

The healthcare workers at the front lines are certainly the heroes during this pandemic, however, like our military, it is not only the soldiers in combat who are needed to win a war. All of the healthcare providers, including non-essential medical, nursing, pharmacy, and dental providers are still taking care of their patients who require continuous care. COVID-19 may be filling our hospital beds and cemeteries, but it’s not stopping the 34.2 million people in this country with diabetes from needing regular consultations with their pharmacist. Why are these healthcare providers, many of whom are residents with low or even no salary, whose student debt is in the average of the hundreds of thousands of dollars, not being helped at all by our federal government? Why do corporation’s debts have more value than the individuals putting themselves at risk?

The average student loan debt in this country is astronomical. The average healthcare provider student loan debt is far worse. The average dentist in 2020 graduates with $350,000 to $400,000 in debt. This increases to $600,000 if for those who complete a specialty training. With the new tax plan of 2017, we cannot even deduct our student loan payments from our taxes. We are taxed on income that we never even see. Thank you for freezing our interest for a few months; we still have $100,000 of interest that has already accrued before we even graduate from school. Many of us are at an unfortunate crossroads: we are stuck with the financial burden of being a graduate student as well as the physical and emotional burden of being a healthcare provider. Why are neither of these categories being helped on the individual level by your legislation?

If there is one takeaway to a capitalist in this uncertain time, it is that our economy and healthcare system are invariably linked. In order for companies to run smoothly, the individuals that make them up have to be healthy and able to work. Will there be another generation of doctors, dentists, pharmacists, and nurses to look after these people? Why would a bright student look at all of the financial and physical risks we take on, without any assistance from our government, and consider one of these paths? What will the future of healthcare look like as enrollment numbers dwindle and we don’t have the army we need to combat the next pandemic, to care for the aging population, or ensure the hardworking people who keep our economy running stay in good health? Who can you bail out the next time our country is sick and dying and we aren’t there to protect you?

Please use this opportunity to protect us. We are asking for:

1. Federal student loan forgiveness eligibility
2. Federally subsidized tuition to public healthcare institutions
3. Reduced interest rates on federal graduate student loans
4. Make interest on student loan payments fully deductible
5. Assurances that any student whose healthcare graduation date is delayed due to this pandemic does not incur additional financial hardship (e.g. having to pay for an additional quarter of tuition)