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California Family Physicians urge Lawmakers to heed Governor’s warning, find solutions, as Healthcare hangs in the balance
SACRAMENTO, Calif. - (Business Wire) Family physicians throughout California today are urging legislators to heed the warning Governor Schwarzenegger delivered in today’s State of the State address. “We agree with the Governor that our elected leaders must put aside ideology and seek solutions to the $14 billion budget deficit,” said Jeffrey Luther, MD, president of the 7,000-member California Academy of Family Physicians. “They must do so, however, without decimating health care funding and programs. Those kinds of cuts would threaten the health of frail and elderly people, families and children across the state.” The physicians are calling on the Governor and Republican lawmakers to consider additional revenue solutions as an alternative to many of the proposed health and human service cuts. They say this is a far better solution than the alternative. “It’s cheaper to provide flu shots, for example, than it is to address a flu pandemic that knows no economic boundaries,” Luther said. “Covering primary medical care is far more cost-effective than paying for the expensive emergency room visits that will become many patients’ only choice.” “We commend the Governor, Senate President Pro Tem Darryl Steinberg, and Assembly Speaker Karen Bass for exploring viable revenue solutions in their effort to bridge the State's $14 billion revenue shortfall,” he said. Impact of Medi-Cal Cuts in Services & Eligibility “Cutting crucial health and human services for the poor while demand for those services skyrockets during this recession is simply the wrong approach to solving the financial crisis,” Luther said. “Reducing Medi-Cal eligibility and benefits for low-income people, for instance, will cause widespread suffering and actually increase the State’s costs. "Some of those patients will seek care in emergency rooms at a significantly higher cost to taxpayers and at the cost of higher premiums for insured individuals and employers. entire Others will simply forego care until it is too late.” “The cuts recommended in the Governor’s current budget proposal also will make it increasingly difficult for community-based family physicians to keep their practices afloat while continuing to see patients who have been abandoned by the State,” Luther said. “The cuts will make it all the more likely that a family physician must tell many of his or her patients they can no longer provide their care, they can provide no specialty referrals, and that only some members of their family will be eligible for care.” In addition, “The Governor’s proposed one-month delay in some Medi-Cal payments to physicians will signal the death knell for many family physicians struggling to care for Medi-Cal patients,” Luther explained. “We can’t keep our doors open in the face of substandard payment rates, payment delays, and policies that force patients to seek primary and preventive care services in expensive emergency rooms.” The proposals to limit eligibility for parents of children in Medi-Cal to those making 72 percent of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL) and to reduce eligibility for seniors and disabled Californians to 100% of the FPL will disproportionately affect those most in need during these hard economic times, Luther said. “It is unconscionable that some people on meager, fixed incomes may have to choose between their next meal and seeing their doctor about their diabetes.” Impact of other proposals The California Academy of Family Physicians says the proposed elimination of the California Children and Families Commission will cause massive disruptions to clinics throughout the State and put many patients’ health in jeopardy. The Academy also opposes the elimination of health care services for immigrants, documented and undocumented. “The proposed health care cuts just will not achieve the savings the Governor has estimated,” Luther said. “His projected numbers fail to account for things like the sharp increase in emergency room care that will result when those forced out of Medi-Cal and Healthy Families lose their primary care medical homes. He also neglects to count the cost of illnesses that could be prevented or treated at earlier stages but instead will become chronic and life-threatening among people who could not afford early care.” “It’s going to take courage for legislators to call for increasing revenues to maintain health and human services at humane levels,” Luther said, “but abandoning services for the poor and risking individual and public health is no solution at all.” About the California Academy of Family Physicians With more than 7,000 members, including active practicing family physicians, residents in family medicine, and medical students interested in the specialty, CAFP is the largest primary care medical society in California, Family physicians are trained to treat an family’s medical needs, addressing the whole spectrum of life’s medical challenges. FPs serve a broad base of patients in urban, suburban and rural areas, often in California’s most underserved areas.
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