The Arizona Medical Association (ArMA) has tried for the last five years to convey to our legislators how devastating a reduction in Medicare payments will be to the sustainability of the program. Virtually every state medical association has taken the same action. While there is uniform agreement in D.C. that the sustainable growth rate (SGR) is broken, there is still no fix, and realistically, one is not on the horizon. It is time to take action to a new level and get patients involved.
The Texas Medical Association (TMA) has launched a campaign called Stop the Medicare Meltdown. Their goal was to collect 1,000,000 signatures for a petition letting Congress know that a continuing series of temporary holds are no longer acceptable. The TMA's direct, hard-hitting campaign was shared with every state and our participation was welcomed. In two days this has gone viral; almost every state has joined, along with a growing number of specialty societies. Expectations now have been raised to collecting multiple millions of signatures. This will let Congress know the time for talking is over. ArMA is joining the campaign and everything you will need to get involved is contained in this STAT. Using the electronic petition, sponsored by the TMA, will provide an accurate accounting of all signors in a verifiable format which will be presented to Congress.
Every physician and patient signature counts in this campaign. ArMA leadership urges you to assist with the petition drive and to encourage your patients to do so as well. The petition can be signed online at
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/meltdown/.
A flyer, available at
http://www.azmedassn.org/publications/MedicarePetition.pdf, is designed to be given to patients, and provides a brief summary and the website link. We encourage you to make copies of the flyer and distribute them to your patients. We know physicians do not like to discuss political issues with patients; we feel this issue transcends politics, and patients' educated participation now is critical.
Let's Stop the Medicare Meltdown; sign the petition today and ask your patients to help you help them!
