To: AAFP Members on the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor/Health and Human Services
From: Tim Alford, MD, Chair, Commission on Legislation and Government Affairs
Kevin J. Burke, Director, Division of Government Relations
Subject: Conference Committee on HR 3010, Labor/Health and Human Services spending bill
Contact Your Senator On Title VII During the August Congressional Recess
August 3, 2005
BACKGROUND
In July, the Senate Labor/Health and Human Services Appropriations Committee marked up its FY 2006 spending bill. The panel increased funding for the Section 747 Primary Care Medicine and Dentistry Cluster, which contains family medicine training, from the current FY 2005 level of $88.8 million to $90 million. As you know, most of these programs were zeroed out in the President’s budget and in the House bill. The measure is expected to go to the Senate floor in September. Once it passes the Senate, it will go to conference with the House bill to negotiate the differences between the two measures.
Congress will be in recess during the month of August and does not return to Washington until September 6. Your Senator is key since he or she sits on the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor/Health and Human Services and will likely serve on the conference committee. Please make every effort to use this opportunity to meet with your Senator while he or she is at home to discuss support for Title VII funding.
Congress will be in recess during the month of August and does not return to Washington until September 6. Your Senator is key since he or she sits on the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor/Health and Human Services and will likely serve on the conference committee. Please make every effort to use this opportunity to meet with your Senator while he or she is at home to discuss support for Title VII funding.
ACTION NEEDED
Please call or visit your Senator in his or her district office using the talking points below: You may also fax a letter to your Senator using the following letter email him/her using the AAFP Speak Out system. Click http://capitol.aafp.org/ and enter your zip code under Congress & President-then click Go!
TALKING POINTS:
- Thank you for providing $90 million to Section 747, the Primary Care Medicine and Dentistry Cluster in the subcommittee markup. Please continue to support this figure when HR 3010, the Senate Labor-HHS FY06 Appropriations bill, is on the Senate floor, and in conference.
- Family Physicians Staff the Nation’s Community Health Centers
- Your Committee allocated a $105 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
Thank you very much for your efforts! Please send any responses you receive to Susan Hildebrandt at shildebrandt@aafp.org.
Funding for Title VII Programs
