The neat thing about Wyoming is you can actually meet and chat with some of the political office holders, and I’ve met Sen. Lynn Hutchings. She was a quirky lady, but a good conservative. And you can see that wyorino.com has scored her at 100% for the votes on legislation they graded (look at all the Demonrat RINOs). It almost seemed like they were trying to smear her in the piece, as Cowboy Daily sometimes puts forth some political bias like when they attacked wyorino.com. Anyway, rushing foreign licensed doctors to Wyoming is not good for citizens, but then I stay away from white coats anyway, as they’re quick to cut things out of you that serve a purpose while saying you don’t need it, as well as put you on poisons to treat symptoms. Anyone that goes along with the corrupt medical and pharmaceutical wealth extraction scheme should alarm you to death, literally a possibility.
Legislators are hoping for success this time as they advance a bill to bring foreign-licensed doctors to Wyoming, to ease a severe shortage. That bill has died in two different legislative sessions, both times in the Majority Floor Leader Scott Heiner’s drawer.
By Clair McFarland
Lawmakers are trying for the third year in a row to authorize foreign-licensed doctors to get licensed in Wyoming, to ease a severe shortage.
The newest version of that bill would let foreign-licensed, English-speaking doctors with at least five years’ experience and no disciplinary records win licensure after working under a Wyoming doctor for three years.
The Legislature’s Labor, Health and Social Services Committee adopted it Thursday on an 8-1 vote. That means it goes into the January lawmaking session with the blessing that a standing committee has vetted it.
Sen. Lynn Hutchings, R-Cheyenne, was the lone nay. She couldn’t be reached by publication for comment.
Hutchings had engaged Kevin Bohnenblust, director of the Wyoming Board of Medicine, in some back-and-forth about whether the board could revoke misbehaving doctors’ immigration status as well as their licenses.
“If you’re revoking a license, it seems like this person has possibly done something that we may not want them in the country as well,” said Hutchings.
Bohnenblust said the Board of Medicine’s authority doesn’t cover immigration and deportation proceedings.
“As much as I’d love to have magical powers over federal immigration laws, we really have no influence on that,” he said.
Eric Boley of the Wyoming Hospital Association and Sheila Bush of the Wyoming Medical Society both urged passage for the bill.
Boley lamented its recurring deaths during the 2025 and 2026 lawmaking sessions.
“This is a tool,” he said. “We need all the tools we can get right now.”
Sen. Charlie Scott, R-Casper, agreed, saying, “My perception is we’re getting a major shortage, particularly in family medicine.”
Died Twice
Sen. Ogden Driskill, R-Devils Tower, sponsored an earlier version of this bill in 2025. It cleared the Senate with only Hutchings voting nay, then passed its first House committee unanimously.
Then it died in the drawer of House Majority Floor Leader Scott Heiner, R-Green River.
This year, Rep. Jacob Wasserburger, R-Cheyenne, sponsored the bill on the House side, and it died in Heiner’s drawer again.
Heiner did not respond by publication to a Thursday-afternoon voicemail request for comment.
The Real Problem
It’s not a failure to win a degree, but backlogs in the residency programs that bottleneck people between medical school and doctoring, said Bohnenblust.
The doctor shortage is projected to reach 124,000 nationally by 2034, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges.
Last spring, more than 9,000 medical school graduates were left without a residency placement, a record high, The Hill reported.
“And part of that problem is because, really, residency slots are funded by the federal government,” said Bohnenblust.
The bill the committee fielded Thursday contains a workaround to dodge the bottleneck.
It would require that the foreign-educated doctor has completed residency in the other country. But it also gives a state licensure path for a foreign-licensed doctor who hasn’t completed any residency but has been practicing for at least 12 years rather than the bill’s standard five.
The Crook County Doc In Australia
Clousten said when Wasserburger brought the bill, lawmakers knew of a doctor licensed in Australia, but hailing from Crook County, who wanted to come home.
“That is an extremely rare situation,” said Bohnenblust.
That doctor didn’t have the post-graduate training now required under the law, but this bill would work around that, he noted.
Scott floated the idea that Wyoming should focus on bolstering its residency programs.
Rep. Ken Clousten, R-Gillette, observed that Wyoming could establish a state-level residency program to rural hospitals, which would require money.
Wyoming uses a federal match program to fund residency programs. Its state program hasn’t been funded since 2016, a Legislative Service Office staffer testified.
Bohnenblust called Clousten’s point apt, but noted also that helping people complete residency in Wyoming doesn’t guarantee they’ll stay.
“It’s one thing to get somebody to move to – not to disparage anyplace – but a community in Wyoming, and have them stay after the first winter,” he said.
Bohnenblust noted it’s an added challenge to convince the doctor’s spouse to stay for a second winter.
Roll Call
The committee members voting in favor of adopting the bill were Scott and Republican Sens. Gary Crum (Laramie), and committee Co-chair Sen. Evie Brennan (Cheyenne), plus Republican Reps. Joel Guggenmos (Riverton), Paul Hoeft (Powell), Darin McCann (Rock Springs), Pepper Ottman (Riverton) and one Democrat, Rep. Mike Yin of Jackson.
The five marked excused were Clousten (no longer present during the vote, which happened after the lunch break), Republican Sen. Cheri Steinmetz (Torrington) and Reps. Rachel Rodriguez-Williams (Cody), Pam Thayer (Rawlins), and Wasserburger.