About this newsletter
The ACP Advocate is an e-newsletter, edited by the College's Washington, DC governmental affairs division, created to provide you, our members, with succinct news about public policy issues affecting internal medicine and patient care. To learn more about ACP's Advocacy and to access the ACP Advocate archives, go to www.acponline.org/advocacy.
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Welcome to The ACP Advocate.
In this week's issue you'll find coverage of ACP's Leadership Day. First, we cover the Preserving Patient Access to Primary Care Act of 2009, introduced by Rep. Allyson Schwartz and Sen. Maria Cantwell. We then give you an overview of Leadership Day and an account of how members felt about the meeting. I thought that this was the most successful and effective Leadership Day ACP has ever had. It generated an extraordinary amount of excitement among our attendees and inspired a new generation of medical students and associates. Our last story highlights ACP's winner of the "Key Contact of the Year" award, Dr. Jay Larson of Missoula, Mont., who has worked closely with Sen. Baucus on health reform.
Dr. Larson has also been an avid commenter on my blog. For more about health care reform, other health policy issues, and discussions among ACP members check out my blog, The ACP Advocate Blog by Bob Doherty. I hope you'll join Dr. Larson and me as we discuss ACP's efforts in guiding health care reform.
I also urge you to take action now to express ACP's views on health care reform to legislators. With Congress set to begin taking up reform in the next two weeks, they need to hear from you!
And, as always, please send your feedback and suggestions on this newsletter to: TheACPAdvocate@acponline.org.
Yours truly,
Bob Doherty
Senior Vice President
Governmental Affairs and Public Policy
American College of Physicians
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In focus
Act Now. Act Often. In 57 days, Health Care Will Fundamentally Change. ACP is stepping up efforts right now to ensure that much-needed improvements for internal medicine are included in comprehensive health care reform legislation. We need your help more than ever to ensure that ACP's top priorities are addressed in the legislation: health coverage for all, and access to an internist or other primary care physician.
Key congressional committees are pursuing a very aggressive timetable. They are working to get legislation through their committees in late June or early July, with a target of August 1 for a vote on a final bill. |
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