We're putting the finishing touches on the upcoming Congress of Delegates meeting, which will be held this weekend in Sacramento at the Holiday Inn Capitol Plaza starting at 12:30 pm on Saturday.  We'll get a jump start on the weekend on Friday the 5^th when we hold meetings with legislative aides and Paul Grundy, MD, MPH, Director of Health Care Transformation for IBM about the Patient Centered Medical Home and the business perspective on PCMH.  That will be followed by a meeting with folks with Sutter Health, Catholic Healthcare West and Mercy on the same topic.

Dr. Grundy will also be a featured speaker, along with Lori Heim, MD, AAFP President, during the Town Hall portion of the Congress of Delegates on Saturday afternoon.  Dr. Heim will discuss federal legislative activities, including updates to the SGR, and Dr. Grundy will speak about the Patient Centered Medical Home.  Tom Riley, our legislative advocate, will provide an update on state legislative activities, especially the mess that we call the state budget, and Sandy Newman, Director of Health Care Policy, will update the Congress on Regional Extension Centers and meaningful use draft regulations.  Dr. Heim will also be meeting with a group of residents from UC Davis for an in-depth discussion about health care policy on Saturday morning.

Another highlight at the Congress will be our luncheon speaker on Sunday - State Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento).  We're very excited to have Senator Steinberg with us to share his insight about the budget crisis.

The Congress weekend is jam-packed.  We've tried to add value to the Congress of Delegates governance functions by combining them with advocacy and media training as well as issues briefings.  All that training and orientation better prepares the 40 or more delegates and alternates who stay over for our legislative visits to the Capitol on Monday, March 8.  Our plan over the past three years has been to educate and mobilize a cadre of family physicians who will advocate for family medicine's key issues at the local, state and national levels, but especially at the state level, which is why we separated the Congress from the Annual Scientific Assembly and moved it to Sacramento. 

It has been regrettable that the recession intervened in health care reform at the state level, and the recession and politics have intervened at the federal level, although the jury is still out about the possibility of federal reform.  As a recent article in the New York Times pointed out, health care costs must be dealt with soon, whether in reform legislation or not, as the cost of health insurance premiums otherwise is expected to more than double in the next 10 years, taking a family of four's coverage to $24,000 by 2020.  Last year, one of the plans we offer employees here at CAFP jumped 18%.  One plan's announced increase of up to 38% for individual policyholders got quite a bit of national attention recently.  One challenge with mandating that insurance companies take all comers is it fails to address the fact that the plans may charge pretty much what they wish.  So, you CAN get coverage, but can you PAY for it?