The AAFP recently launched a fourth Action Alert in its campaign to preserve federal support for family medicine departments. The push came as Congress began debating the details of the federal budget, which could cut discretionary federal spending to pay for the cost of rebuilding after hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
In an Oct. 14 Action Alert, AAFP asked members to urge their U.S. representatives to support Title VII of the Public Health Service Act. Section 747 of Title VII provides funds to departments of family medicine at medical schools for residency programs, predoctoral education, departmental support and faculty development.
On June 24, the House of Representatives passed its appropriations bill, H.R. 3010, with zero funding for Title VII; on July 12, the Senate Appropriations Committee approved $90 million in funds for Title VII. Before the committees meet to work out their differences, Congress could approve budget instructions that would make the House numbers much more likely to prevail.
Model E-mail
The most recent Action Alert contains a model e-mail that Academy members can use to urge their U.S. representatives to sign onto a letter by U.S. Reps. Charles Norwood, R-Ga., and Diana DeGette, D-Colo.
Norwood and DeGette's letter asks the chairman and senior Democratic member of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services to support the Senate's $90 million Title VII funding level as House and Senate conference committee members work to iron out differences on the House measure.
The model e-mail notes each family physician office generates about $1.2 million each year in income for rural communities and $900,000 in urban areas.
Moreover, loss of Title VII funding would affect medical schools' ability to produce adequate numbers of primary care professionals to meet community health centers' future demand for medical expertise, the e-mail says. Family physicians comprise half the medical staff in community health centers, which are to be expanded next year with $100 million in new federal money. However, without Section 747 support of the family medicine departments that produce these physicians, CHCs could face future doctor shortages.
Additional Request
The Oct. 14 Action Alert also asks Academy members to contact their U.S. senators. The message: Urge Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn, to move -- and pass -- the Senate appropriations bill that contains $90 million for Title VII. Without its passage, Title VII is at risk of getting the zero funding passed by the House, said Kevin Burke, director of the AAFP Division of Government Relations.
"The House is going to try to hold to its zero funding," he said. "They will try to pressure the Senate into accepting zero funding for Title VII."
One of the House leadership's potential tactics is to claim that, because the Senate as a whole has not passed an appropriations bill, the House version -- with no support for Title VII -- should take precedence.
