CMA needs your help to make sure that the legislature includes money in the 2007-2008 state budget for the the Steve M. Thompson Loan Repayment Program. Please contact the key legislators listed below and urge them to fund this valuable program, which improves access to care for underserved populations in California. We are asking for a modest $5 million to keep this program alive.

This loan repayment program provides medical school loan repayment grants of up to $105,000 in exchange for a three-year service commitment in a medically underserved area of the state. The program, created under a CMA-sponsored law in 2002, was renamed last year in honor of Thompson, CMA’s longtime vice president of government relations, who passed away in August after a very short but precipitous battle with cancer.

The legislators we are targeting are:

• Senate Budget Committee Chair Denise Ducheny (D-San Diego)
• Senate Republican Leader Dick Ackerman (R-Orange County)
• Senate Democratic Leader Don Perata (D-Oakland)
• Assembly Budget Committee Chair John Laird (D-Santa Cruz)
• Assembly Republican Leader Michael Villines (R-Merced)
• Assembly Democratic Leader Fabian Nunez (D-urban Los Angeles)

Please contact one or more of these legislators as soon as possible, as the budget process is moving very quickly. Click here for a sample letter.

Contact: Susan Bassett, 916/444-5532 or sbassett@cmanet.org.