As the U.S. Senate begins to debate sweeping health reform legislation, CMA leaders are heading to Washington, D.C., to fight for changes to the bill to ensure reform delivers on its promise of providing patients access to a doctor when they need it.

CMA has encouraged lawmakers all year long to craft a workable plan that provides universal access to health care. While CMA supports meaningful health reform, and the general thrust of legislation passed last month by the House of Representatives, the CMA Executive Committee voted two weeks ago to oppose the Senate bill as currently written.

"There is no way health care reform can work if patients can't get access to a doctor," says CMA President Brennan Cassidy, M.D. "The Senate bill fails to fix major problems in Medicare and Medicaid, which currently suffer from chronic underfunding that undermines access and continues to undermine the success of these government programs.

"As physicians, we remain committed to meaningful reform that best serves our patients. Building reform on the foundation of Medicare and Medicaid can only work if that foundation is sound, and unfortunately both programs need major improvements and better funding to function properly."

What is meaningful health reform? Meaningful reform would truly build on what works and fix what's broken by ensuring people have affordable access to care and ensuring health care decisions are made by physicians and patients, not insurance companies or government bureaucrats. It would rein in the health insurance industry to increase competition and choice for consumers; protect the needs of patients; prohibit coverage exclusions due to pre-existing conditions and prevent insurance companies from cancelling policies after patients get sick and file expensive claims; and provide sufficient resources so that public programs can deliver on their promise of health care. CMA is working with senators to draft amended legislation that meets these goals.

Contact: Elizabeth McNeil 415/882-3376 or emcneil@cmanet.org.