FP Report -- May 1999
Call to action
Ask lawmakers to co-sponsor GME bills
The Academy is asking you for a favor: Encourage your lawmakers to co-sponsor bills that would repair funding problems for family practice residencies.
Congress created the problems inadvertently in 1997 when it set caps on residency slots to reduce the number of physicians.
The Graduate Medical Education Technical Amendments of 1999, S. 541 and H.R. 1222, would correct the problems. For example, the amendments would expand caps on numbers of residents from those trained in hospitals in 1996 to include all of those trained in community settings, most of whom were family practice residents.
The Academy and the Organizations of Academic Family Medicine (including the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine) helped frame language for the bills.
The bills were introduced by Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Frank Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Rep. John Baldacci, D-Maine. At press time, co-sponsors included Sens. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and Thad Cochran, R-Miss., and Reps. Gerald Kleczka, D-Wis., Bernard Sanders, Independent-Vt., and Martin Frost, D-Texas.
For sample letters to members of Congress, access http://www.aafp.org/family/ and http://www.stfm.org online. Please personalize your letters and send copies to Susan Hildebrandt at AAFP, 2021 Massachusetts Ave. N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036.
FP Report is published by the AAFP News Department. Copyright © 1999 by American Academy of Family Physicians.
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