PALM SPRINGS WASHINGTON D.C. TRIP

I believe our April 21-28 trip was successful.

We met with 31 Organizational and Congressional members and staffers. We made a point to contact the chief committees working on Medicare. We let them know what our views were on the flawed SGR Reimbursement Pay Rate Cuts to Physicians and Medical Liability Reform issues.

Our offer to submit written and/or make oral statements at Committee hearings was made to the Senate Finance Committee, Senate Armed Services Committee, Energy and Commerce Committee, and Committee on Ways and Means (Subcommittee on Health).

We learned that the Senate Committee HELP no longer includes Medicare. It seemed like the American Association of Retired Persons was interested more in keeping Part B costs down for retirees than their concern for doctor reimbursement pay cuts.

Our meeting with MOAA was extremely productive. The MOAA publications department needs a 2 ½ month lead time to get post cards fixed to our monthly magazine once a Congressional Bill is in the works for the flawed SGR Law.

AMA, ACC, and Alliance of Specialty Medicine were all very receptive to our suggestions. We now have a joint plan to work with them and MOAA to combine our forces at the designated time to gain massive grassroots support. Those organizations are helping us with our MOAA member education program for the 437 Nationwide MOAA Chapters.

The meeting with MedPAC (Dr. Mark Miller/Executive Director, and Dr. Kevin Hayes/Principal Policy Analyst) was lengthy and revealing. They seemed genuinely interested in our comments. We think we made them more aware of growing patient access problems to quality doctors
for military members and all senior citizens-especially here in the desert.

ROBERT RAMIREZ, CWO4, USN (RET)
President
Palm Springs Chapter

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