To:
AAFP Key Contacts with Representatives on the House Appropriations Committee
From:
Mary Frank, MD, President, AAFP
William Mygdal, EdD, President, STFM
Warren Newton, MD, President, ADFM
Penny Tenzer, MD, President, AFMRD
Moira Stewart, PhD, President, NAPCRG
Subject:
House Labor/HHS/Education Subcommittee ZEROED out funding for Section 747 family medicine training June 9
On behalf of the family of family medicine organizations, we are asking you to do all you can to contact your Representative to request support for family medicine training programs. Yesterday, the House Labor-Health and Human Services Appropriations Subcommittee ZEROED out funding for family medicine training and almost all other health professions programs, including AHECs and rural health programs. The House Appropriations Committee is expected to meet next week (Wednesday or Thursday) to draft the Labor-HHS appropriations bill. We are at a defining moment in funding for these programs because this is the first time that a Congressional appropriations subcommittee has zeroed out these dollars. We need your help in overturning this action.
Section 747 Family Medicine Training ZEROED Out
June 10, 2005
Action Needed
- Call your Representative at 202-224-3121.
- Write your own letter (view a sample letter) and fax it. Identify yourself as a constituent.
- Send an e-mail through the Academy’s Speak Out program. Visit http://capitol.aafp.org/ and enter your zip code under Congress & President—then click Go!
Talking Points for a Phone Call with your Representative
- Restore funding to the Title VII health professions programs to at least the FY 2005 level of $300 million.
- Restore funding to the Section 747 primary care cluster (which includes family medicine training programs) to current levels. Section 747 of the Public Health Service Act received $89 million in FY 05.
- Family physicians staff the nation’s community health centers
- The Subcommittee allocated a $100 million increase in funding to community health centers.
- Since nearly one-half of the physicians who staff the nation’s Community Health Centers are family physicians, support for Section 747 would mean more trained doctors for those centers.
- Family physicians have an economic impact on states
- On average, the income that comes into a community due to the presence of one family physician, and the additional jobs that result from his or her practice, amounts to approximately
- $1.2 million in rural areas, and,
- $0.9 million in urban areas. (Oklahoma Physician Manpower Training Commission, October 2003.)
- On average, the income that comes into a community due to the presence of one family physician, and the additional jobs that result from his or her practice, amounts to approximately
Family Medicine ZEROED Out
