Healthcare Reform: Grassroots Call to Action

U.S. House of Representatives to Vote on Health Reform

Please Call Your Representative by Friday, November 6, 2009. Please use the AMA Grassroots Hotline at (800) 833-6354. Plug in your ZIP code, and it will automatically connect you to your member of Congress. Ask them to vote yes on HR 3961, and express your concern about HR 3962.

No Doctors, No Reform.

Health reform legislation is at a critical stage. As early as this weekend, the U.S. House of Representatives will vote on two pieces of major health reform legislation:

• HR 3961. Repeals nearly $250 billion in future Medicare cuts to physicians. CMA strongly supports this bill.
• HR 3962. Omnibus health reform containing many provisions intended primarily to expand access to affordable care. CMA supports some aspects of this bill and opposes others. For more important details on which provisions CMA supports and which we have serious concerns about, please click here.

Your Representative needs to hear from you on this health reform legislation.

Just like our healthcare system, there are aspects of the House legislation which work for patients and physicians and aspects which need to be fixed. Because these bills will ultimately be reconciled in conference committee with the Senate version, it is critical for physicians to voice their support or opposition for provisions of the House legislation now to improve our ability to keep what works and fix what doesn't in the final legislation.

Call your representative by Friday to encourage them to pass health reform that ensures everyone has access to a doctor.

To call your representatives, please use the AMA Grassroots Hotline at (800) 833-6354. Plug in your ZIP code and it will automatically connect you to your member of Congress. Specifically, encourage your representative to:

1. KEEP the Medicare payment fix - Vote Yes on HR 3961 to repeal the SGR cuts. CMA believes it is imperative that the Medicare SGR bill be part of any health reform effort. The longer Congress procrastinates, the higher the price tag for American taxpayers and the fewer physicians participating in Medicare.
2. KEEP the health insurance industry reforms contained in HR 3962. Insurance companies should not be allowed to deny patients coverage based on pre-existing conditions, rescind health care coverage because of mistakes on applications, or direct excessive amounts of health care premiums to administration or profit.
3. KEEP the Medicare and Medicaid payment fixes for primary care physicians in HR 3962. Medicare reimbursement rates for primary care would be increased at least 7% per year. Medicaid (Medi-Cal) reimbursement rates for primary care physicians would increase to Medicare rates. This increase is critical to ensure that primary care physicians can afford to see Medicare and Medicaid patients.
4. FIX Medicaid funding for specialists in HR 3962. Increase Medicaid (Medi-Cal) payment rates for specialists up to Medicare levels.
5. FIX the failure to allow patients and physicians the choice of direct contracting. Patients should be given the right to privately contract with physicians of their choice. This would give patients more freedom in choosing their physicians, helping to maintain current physician-patient relationships and to promote the continuity of care which is so essential to quality health care and lower costs.
6. FIX the failure to allow doctors the power to collectively negotiate with insurance companies. Physicians seek anti-trust relief to negotiate on a level playing field with insurers. This would allow physicians to improve patient care through technology, information sharing and patient care coordination.

Health reform must give everyone access to a doctor to deliver on its promise.

No Doctors, No Reform.

To call your representatives, please use the AMA Grassroots Hotline at (800) 833-6354. Plug in your ZIP code and it will automatically connect you to your member of Congress. Calling your representative is more effective at this point than email, but to send an email to your representative, you may do so here. (Download a sample letter.) Once the House has voted on this legislation, the action will shift to the Senate, which is discussing health reform legislation that includes many provisions that are punitive to physicians. While we support the primary care increases in the current Senate legislation, we are opposed to many aspects of the bill and will be organizing a grassroots effort on the bill in the coming days.

For more important details on which provisions CMA supports and which we have serious concerns about, please click here.