Over one hundred specialty physicians from across the country came to Washington last month as part of the Alliance of Specialty Medicine’s annual Advocacy Fly-In. For three days, providers, representing a dozen different medical specialties, hear from and speak to health policy officials and elected leaders about legislative and regulatory matters affecting their practices and their patients. Mandip Atwal, D.O., FACOS and Hope Burkett, D.O. represented the American College of Osteopathic Surgeons.
Ironically, the timing of the Fly-In would coincide with the Senate’s back-and-forth debate on repeal and replacement of the Affordable Care Act. On the very day of some key (and at times heated) decision making on this issue, the Alliance’s speaker roster included Representative Kevin Brady (R-TX), the Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) and Thomas E. Price, M.D., Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. As leaders in the debate on healthcare, each of them brought very distinctive views on the Affordable Care Act.
Both Senator Paul and Secretary Price were practicing physicians before they turned to public service. Senator Paul was an ophthalmologist and Secretary Price an orthopedic surgeon. The Alliance also heard from two other doctors-turned-Congressmen in Rep. Raul Ruiz (D-CA), an emergency room physician and Rep. Phil Roe (R-TN) an OB-GYN. They are two of the fifteen physician members of the United States Congress - a reflection of how the debate around the future of our country’s healthcare system has made the provider community more politically active.
The Alliance was also provided very timely updates from Rep. Gene Green (D-TX) the senior Democrat on the House Subcommittee on Health, Dr. Jonathan Jarow, a senior medical advisor from the US Food and Drug Administration, and Rick Dearborn, the White House’s Deputy Chief of Staff for Legislative and Governmental Affairs.
In conjunction with the speaker presentations, each Alliance doctor spent an afternoon on Capitol Hill to meet with their Members of Congress and Senators (or their staffs) to advocate for legislative proposals such as medical liability reform, measures to address physician workforce shortage, repeal of the Independent Payment Advisory Board and graduate medical education.