Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

AUSTIN - Dozens of rural counties in West Texas suffering a doctor shortage - especially 27 that do not have even one physician - got some welcome news Wednesday.

Gov. Rick Perry signed House Bill 2154, which will help 114 medically underserved counties lure as many as 900 new doctors.

Rep. Warren Chisum, R-Pampa, attached a key amendment to the bill to set up a $90 million fund to help repay up to $160,000 in loans of each medical student who agrees to practice in an underserved area for a minimum of four years.

"He's very excited," said Cristen Wohlgemuth, Chisum's chief of staff. "This bill will help tremendously in providing truly needed medical access to rural counties of West Texas."

The money for the physician loan-repayment program will come from a tax on smokeless tobacco products. The bill, authored by Rep. Al Edwards, D-Houston, passed overwhelmingly in the House and in the Senate.

Chisum, Edwards and other supporters of the legislation said HB 2154 was desperately needed because the Texas Physician Education Loan Repayment Program that the Legislature created in 1985 only pays up to $45,000 of a loan of a medical school graduate. Due to college-tuition increases of the past six years and other factors, the average loan for a doctor just out of med school is now about $150,000.

Organizations that lobbied for the passage of the legislation were just as thrilled that Perry signed the bill.

"The legislation was carefully crafted to solve a very real problem in Texas," said Texas Association of Community Health Centers Executive Director Jose Camacho. "The impact of this legislation will be seen from our border and rural communities to our urban core."

However, not all legislation that could help rural counties attract more doctors has been signed.

House Bill 3485, filed by Rep. Garnet Coleman, D-Houston, which has a key amendment by Sen. Robert Duncan, R-Lubbock, is still awaiting Perry's signature.

The Duncan amendment would allow hospitals in counties with populations of no more than 50,000 to hire physicians as employees. Texas is one of a few states where doctors are self-employed, even if they only work at hospitals.

Perry's deadline to sign or veto bills is Monday.