Highlights from CMA Legislative Advocacy Day
On April 19th, 2023 the Santa Clara County Medical Association participated in the CMA’s 49th Legislative Advocacy Day. It was a huge success! Our SCCMA team sent 22 physicians to Sacramento to meet with our legislative offices. We had nine legislative meetings in one day. We met with the offices for Assemblymember Low, Assemblymember Lee, Assemblymember Pellerin, Senator Becker, Senator Wahab, Assemblymember Rivas, Assemblymember Kalra, Assemblymember Berman and Senator Cortese.
Our group convened at the SAFE Credit Union Convention Center with Hundreds of other physicians, residents and medicals students from throughout California.
Physicians were lobbying their legislators in support of CMA's priority issues, including:
- SB 598: Prior Authorization Reform, which would significantly reduce the administrative burden physicians must bear because of prior authorization.
- AB 765: Truth in Advertising, which protects patients AND physicians against allied health professionals who use terminology to misrepresent themselves as physicians.
- Medi-Cal: While we have made sure that Californians have health care coverage, it is meaningless if they can’t see a provider or get regular, timely care outside of the emergency room. Access to care is the last leg of the stool that holds this safety net program up and is the key to unlocking quality health care for all and reducing disparities.
Our participation was a huge success. We had nine successful meetings with all of the state level representatives. In the cases where our Santa Clara County overlapped with an adjoining County within a representative’s district, we collaborated with our component medical associations to meet jointly with those representatives. For example, we were joined in our meeting with Assemblymember Lee with the Alameda-Contra Costa Medical Association.
