AAFP Leaders Attend Presidential Speech on Health Care Reform

During a gathering of white-coated physicians yesterday in the White House Rose Garden, President Obama emphasized that physicians are on the front lines in the battle for health care reform. And, during a short private meeting in the Oval Office before the larger event, he urged AAFP leaders to push for enactment of health care reform legislation this year.

According to participants in that brief meeting, which included AAFP President Ted Epperly, M.D., of Boise, Idaho; AAFP President-elect Lori Heim, M.D., of Vass, N.C.; and AAFP Board Chair Jim King, M.D., of Selmer, Tenn., Obama told the Academy leaders and leaders of other physician groups that physicians are highly trusted and respected by the American public, putting doctors in an ideal position to advocate on behalf of health care reform.

"We talked about the good of health care reform and why we need it now," said Epperly about the Oval Office meeting.

Epperly said he told the president that the AAFP supports providing coverage to all Americans and that the country needs more primary care physicians or it will no longer have a viable health care system.

"We passed on the message about the importance of primary care, including the importance of family physicians," Epperly told AAFP News Now.

King said the meeting with the president demonstrates that Obama knows that he needs the support of the physician community to make health care reform happen.

Obama met with the groups just before delivering a speech on health care reform in the Rose Garden. More than 150 white-coated physicians, including 10 members of the AAFP, attended the speech.

During that speech, Obama noted that the health care reform bills now pending in the House and Senate include "proposals to provide loan forgiveness for primary care physicians who chose to practice in rural and underserved areas," a statement that prompted applause from the audience.

"The administration has been very supportive of primary care, and we heard that again," Heim told AAFP News Now. "The president understands that in order to get health care access, we are going to need the workforce to deliver on that access."

As Congress continues to debate health care reform, Obama used the speech as an opportunity to demonstrate that many physicians and physician organizations support reform.

"These men and women would not be supporting health insurance reform if they really believed that it would lead to government bureaucrats making decisions that are best left to doctors," said Obama. "They wouldn't be here today if they believed that reform in any way would damage the very critical and sacred doctor-patient relationship.

"The reason these doctors are here is because they have seen firsthand what's broken about our health care system," he added.

In his speech, Obama reiterated many points he has made in the past, saying, for example, that health care reform will prohibit insurance companies from denying coverage based on pre-existing conditions or dropping coverage when patients get sick.

"Insurance companies will be required to cover, at no extra charge, routine checkups and preventive care," he said.

Obama also noted he was directing HHS to move forward with pilot programs that would address medical malpractice reform via alternatives to litigation. And he vowed to work for the elimination of the sustainable growth rate formula, which determines physician payment rates under Medicare.

"You did not devote your lives to be bean counters or paper pushers," Obama told the physicians. "You took an oath so that you could help people. The reforms we're proposing to our health care system will help you to live up to that oath. They will make sure that neither some government bureaucrat nor insurance company bureaucrat gets between a patient and their doctor."

Epperly said Obama articulated the key points of his message clearly and simply. "I like the way he continues to focus on insurance reform as well as health care reform in general and that we must, as a nation, get this done," said Epperly.

Heim, meanwhile, described the president's speech as "very enlightening."

"The president really understands what the barriers are to our patients getting what they need now -- not only the barriers in terms of what happens to them at the hands of insurance companies, but the frustrations and difficulties that physicians face," said Heim. "He talked about malpractice and administrative burdens, things that keep us from doing what we want to do."