Doctor Advocacy
With unprecedented challenges for medicine where we work, in our communities, in our State Legislatures and in Congress, and with a historic opportunity for healthcare reform, your participation in the healthcare and patient care advocacy has become an essential part of practicing medicine.
Dear Doctors:
This is a critical time in national healthcare reform. Most of us realize that our healthcare system and its access and delivery needed improvement. There are many good things that are part of healthcare reform. However, we must act now to ensure that our Health and Hospitals Corporation (HHC) and New York's public safety net system is not harmed.
Attached please find a
copy of a letter I wrote to our New York U.S. Senators and Congressional Representatives. I have also written our State and Local elected leaders to urge them to contact the NY Congressional Delegation to do right by New York and our patients. Also attached is a
newspaper story covering this subject on which I was interviewed.
What we ask each of you is that if you can just take some time to
call the U.S. Senators from New York State and the Congressional Representatives from New York City (at the numbers listed below and attached) and tell them to not harm HHC or our patients and communities. Feel free to use any of our letter or your own words. What is important is that you call as soon as possible to both their legislative and district offices. Tell them
"Do Not Harm New York City or our HHC public hospitals and facilities by losing Medicaid funding to other states that did not care for the uninsured like we do, by adding an additional $1 billion in annual Medicaid costs on New York, by cutting between $800 million to more than $1 billion a year in DSH (Medicaid Disproportionate Share Hospital) payments, and by causing cuts in funding to hospitals and nursing homes as well as closing of clinics and other critical healthcare services. Eliminate the Senate bill’s unfair burdens placed on New York City and negotiate a conference bill that is fair for New York." Again, the contact phone numbers are listed below and are attached.
Please let us know that you made the calls and how it went. Make our doctor voices heard!
Sincerely,
Barry Liebowitz, M.D., President
New York City Congressional Delegation
| TITLE |
NAME |
LEGISLATIVE PHONE |
DISTRICT PHONE |
| Senator |
Charles Schumer |
202-224-3121 or 202-224-6542 |
212-486-4430 |
| Senator |
Kirsten Gillibrand |
202-224-3121 or 202-224-4451 |
212-688-6262 |
| Congressman |
Gary Ackerman |
202-224-3121 or 202-225-2601 |
718-423-2154 |
| Congressman |
Gregory Meeks |
202-224-3121 or 202-225-3461 |
718-725-6000 |
| Congressman |
Joseph Crowley |
202-224-3121 or 202-225-3965 |
718-931-1400 |
| Congressman |
Jerrold Nadler |
202-224-3121 or 202-225-5635 |
212-367-7350 |
| Congressman |
Anthony Weiner |
202-224-3121 or 202-225-6616 |
718-520-9001 |
| Congressman |
Edolphus Towns |
202-224-3121 or 202-225-5936 |
718-855-8018 |
| Congresswoman |
Yvette Clarke |
202-224-3121 or 202-225-6231 |
718-287-1142 |
| Congresswoman |
Nydia Velazquez |
202-224-3121 or 202-225-2361 |
718-599-3658 |
| Congressman |
Michael McMahon |
202-224-3121 or 202-225-3371 |
718-630-5277 |
| Congresswoman |
Carolyn Maloney |
202-224-3121 or 202-225-7944 |
212-860-0606 |
| Congressman |
Charles Rangel |
202-224-3121 or 202-225-4365 |
212-663-3900 |
| Congressman |
Jose Serrano |
202-224-3121 or 202-225-4361 |
718-620-0084 |
| Congressman |
Eliot Engel |
202-224-3121 or 202-225-2464 |
718-796-9700 |
| Join the Rapid Response Team |
This year, Congress will take action on meaningful health care reform, saving Medicaid from potential cuts, reauthorizing and expanding SCHIP, reducing medical school debt, the Employee Free Choice Act, and many other issues that impact doctors and their patients. When one of the issues comes up for a vote, we want to make sure legislators hear our voices immediately on behalf of our patients and ourselves.
To make sure Doctors Council SEIU is heard on these issues, we’re putting together a team of rapid responders.
Join the Rapid Response Team
Become Part of the Team and join now by sending your name, where you work, your cell, work and home phone numbers to info@doctorscouncil.com
What does it mean to be a rapid responder?
1.) We’ll keep in touch with you on developments relating to health care reform and other issues important to Doctors Council SEIU members through periodic email updates.
2.) Every so often, when a bill is pending in Congress, or when an important issue arises, we will send you an “action alert” by phone, email or text.
3.) We’ll ask you to take action, such as by making a call to a legislator, attending a rally or media event, signing a petition, or writing a letter to legislators or newspapers.
4.) We’ll then ask you to reach out to FIVE colleagues and ask them to do the same thing. (You don’t have to ask the same five people each time you receive an action alert.) Ask them to let you know when they’ve completed the action.
5.) Then report back to us and let us know how successful you and your colleagues were – it’s just that easy.
We know your schedules are incredibly busy, so this is a low-hassle, high-impact way for you to be involved in shaping local, state-wide and national policies in a way that makes a real difference and lets your voice be heard!
See how your members of Congress are voting
Help Protect Patient Care NATIONALLY
by being active in the following organizations:
Health Care for America Now (HCAN)
Health Care for America Now (HCAN) is a national grassroots campaign of more than 1,000 organizations in 46 states representing 30 million people dedicated to winning quality, affordable health care we all can count on. HCAN is building a national movement to win comprehensive health care reform by helping mobilize people in their communities to lobby their U.S. Senators and Representatives in Congress to stand up to the insurance companies and other special interest groups to achieve quality, affordable health care. HCAN believes that everyone in this country should have accessible, quality health care they can afford. HCAN is fighting for a uniquely American solution that gives you a guarantee of coverage and real choice: keep your private insurance plan or join a new public health insurance plan so you are no longer at the mercy of the private insurance industry.
National Physicians Alliance
The National Physicians Alliance is founded to restore physicians' primary emphasis on the core values of our profession: service, integrity, and advocacy. As a diverse physician community, the NPA works to improve health and well being, and to ensure equitable, affordable, high quality health care for all people.
Doctors for America
Doctors for America is a national grassroots organization that engages physicians in health reform efforts. The organization works to share physicians' ideas and experiences with Congress and the public in order to fashion and support the best possible solution to our current healthcare crisis. Doctors for America works to convey the ideas and experiences of physicians to achieve healthcare reform based on four key pillars: affordable coverage, expanded access to care, high quality care, and practice environments that allow physicians to focus on patient care.
Physicians for a National Health Program
Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP) is a single issue organization advocating a universal, comprehensive single-payer national health program. Their members and physician activists work toward a single-payer national health program in their communities. PNHP performs ground breaking research on the health crisis and the need for fundamental reform, coordinates speakers and forums, participates in town hall meetings and debates, contributes scholarly articles to peer-reviewed medical journals, and appears regularly on national television and news programs advocating for a single-payer system.
Help Protect Patient Care LOCALLY in Our Communities
by being active in the following organizations:
Commission on the Public’s Health System
CPHS was formed out of a strong belief that decisions about health care must include public input and address the diverse needs of communities. CPHS continues to be a strong coalition of city residents, community health advocates, health workers, and labor unions. CPHS remains committed to making sure that our public health system stays strong, that people have access to health services, and the public's voice on health care issues is heard.
Members of CPHS come from diverse communities, with a wide range of ideas, skills, education, and experiences. Whether you work in the health care system or simply use it, your concerns, your opinions, and your experiences need to be heard. CPHS is a strong advocate for the public health & hospital system; a strong voice for public health funding in the state & city budgets; a strong supporter of community organizations organizing in their neighborhoods; and a strong advocate for access to health care services regardless of ability to pay, language spoken, race and/or ethnicity, or diagnosis.
Citizen Action/ Illinois
Citizen Action/Illinois was formed to work on behalf of the public interest both in Illinois and Washington, DC and is built on a tradition of strong grassroots citizen organizations-- in labor, the communities, and in the progressive movement. Citizen Action/Illinois is the state's largest public interest organization and a progressive political coalition committed to creating social change both in Illinois and across the nation. The organization is based on several core values: a belief that every human has equal worth, that the purpose of our society is to allow its members to live meaningful and fulfilling lives, and that there is collective good beyond our individual interests. It seeks to promote and win public policies that reflect these values and embody social justice. The Emergency Network to Save Cook County Health Services is part of Citizen Action/ Illinois.