TAFP members represent Texas
at national advocacy conference

posted 05.31.12

Nearly 200 family physicians, residents, medical students, and state chapter officials from around the country attended AAFP’s Family Medicine Congressional Conference in Washington, D.C., May 14-15, to receive advocacy training and meet with their congressional lawmakers. The topics dominating the 2012 conference were physician workforce, graduate medical education, and replacing the sustainable growth rate in the Medicare physician payment formula.

Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., presented a keynote address on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Though an outspoken opponent of the law, she told attendees that if the Supreme Court rules it unconstitutional, Congress will work to retain certain provisions in the law including barring insurance companies from denying coverage based on pre-existing conditions, allowing children younger than 26 years old to remain on their parents’ health insurance plans, and closing the Medicare Part D prescription coverage gap.

From the other side of the aisle, Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J., the ranking Democrat on the Energy and Commerce’s Subcommittee on Health, spoke positively on the law, telling attendees it will greatly expand access to care and benefit patients and physicians alike. Read full coverage from a May 16 AAFP News Now story.

Thanks to the TAFP members who participated in the 2012 FMCC: Lorenzo Aragon, M.D., of El Paso; Joane Baumer, M.D., of Fort Worth; David Buck, M.D., of Houston; Rebecca Campos, M.D., of El Paso; Douglas Curran, M.D., of Athens; Tricia Elliott, M.D., of Galveston; Roland Goertz, M.D., of Waco; Lesca Hadley, M.D., of Cleburne; Eddie Lowe, M.D., of Fort Worth; Linda Siy, M.D., of Fort Worth; Erica Swegler, M.D., of Keller; and Barbara Thompson, M.D., of Galveston.