Getting to the 'Promised Land': a Transformed Health Care System

I'm very excited and honored to kick off "As We See It: Voices From the AAFP," the new members-only section of AAFP News Now. Limiting "As We See It" to members will enable the Academy to communicate more candidly with you about its advocacy work, sometimes including the "inside story" to help you better understand the latest developments on an issue.

To set the stage, I would like to step back from individual issues and give you the “big picture” on what the Academy is doing and why. The Academy's vision is to transform health care to achieve optimal health for everyone, and our mission is to improve the health of patients, families and communities by serving the needs of you, the member, with professionalism and creativity.

To achieve this, the AAFP Board of Directors has developed a strategic plan that focuses on changing the health care system so we can provide care for all people in economically viable practices. The plan also focuses on maintaining and continually improving our competency to provide this care in a manner that is of the highest quality and, at the same time, affordable to our patients.

Regardless of how we envision an all-inclusive health care system, the same three things must occur to achieve it.

First, we must have an adequate workforce of family physicians. There is no other way to get the quality Americans deserve at a cost they can afford.

Second, we must have a payment system that provides incentives for young people to choose family medicine as their career path, and that allows family docs to keep their practices solvent in order to maintain the ready access to care that people must have.

Third, we must have a different medical liability system that frees us to do the right thing, and only the right thing, for each and every patient, each and every time.

Any proposed health care system for America must address constructively these three areas or it will not be workable, much less affordable. Everything the Academy does on health system reform needs to be based on these three basic requirements for a functional, fiscally responsible model of health care delivery.

We know the goal. We know the pieces that must be put together to achieve that goal. All we need now is the will to never quit, to never give up, to not give in to fatigue in the effort.

I know family docs, and I know that we have the will; that we have the strength; that we will never quit; that we will never be stopped in doing what is right for our patients, our colleagues, our country and the generations yet to come.

To make our determination crystal clear to Congress, the Academy is organizing the first-ever family physician rally in Washington Sept. 27 during the AAFP Scientific Assembly. The more family docs who participate, the clearer our resolve will be. Please watch for more information in AAFP News Now -- then join me on the West Lawn of the Capitol Sept. 27!