Elections Have Consequences; FP-PAC Protects and Promotes Family Medicine
In 2014, trial lawyers and others qualified an initiative, Proposition 46, which would have dramatically altered the Medical Injury Compensation and Reform Act (MICRA), making it easier to file lawsuits against health care providers, increasing health care costs, reducing access to care and generating more legal fees for lawyers. Without family physicians’ support of FP-PAC, we would not have had the resources to support the opposition campaign and work with family physicians throughout the state to spread the message of how harmful this measure would be to patient access to care if passed.
In 2016, FP-PAC was very active in the election cycle, not only in supporting candidates for the Legislature, but also in targeting contributions for key ballot initiatives. One of the most significant wins FP-PAC achieved was passage of Proposition 56, a measure to increase the tobacco tax and use a significant portion of the revenue generated to improve Medi-Cal provider payment and support primary care and emergency medicine residency programs. Although Big Tobacco spent more than $60 million to defeat the measure, the physician community rose up, gathered signatures, participated in get-out-the-vote efforts and won the battle.