Contact your U.S. senators and representative before Friday and urge them to vote "no" on the Labor/HHS appropriations conference report on H.R. 3010. That's the focus of a recent AAFP Action Alert and an e-mail sent to all AAFP members this week.
By contacting your federal lawmakers, you can help the effort to stop funding cuts so severe that they virtually eliminate support for Area Health Education Centers, rural outreach grants and family physician training under Section 747 of Title VII of the Public Health Service Act. The proposed cuts would provide no funds for geriatrics programs and rural health research.
The e-mail urges members to call (202) 224-3121 and tell federal lawmakers to "go back to the drawing board and revise the bill to include increased funding levels for critical health programs."
Among the points callers can make:
- The bill as it stands is unacceptable; legislators should vote no on the conference report. Instead, they should revise the bill so that funds to Section 747, which supports primary health care professions, are restored.
- Because family physicians are the front-line medical responders in any future natural disaster or disease pandemic, cutting family physician training poses a threat to the nation's readiness for such crises.
- Slashing Section 747 funding would undermine the nation's ability to provide health care to millions of Americans, because family physicians comprise half the doctors who staff the nation's community health centers.
- Each family medicine practice generates an average of $1.2 million of income that's injected into rural communities and $900,000 into urban communities.
"If you have a personal relationship with your representative member or senators, try to speak with them directly," advised Susan Hildebrandt, assistant director of the AAFP Division of Government Relations. "Otherwise, ask to speak with the representative's or senator's health legislative assistant. Try not to leave a message with the receptionist. Another option is to e-mail your senator or representative through the Academy's Speak Out system."
