This past week, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed six CAFP-supported bills. The goals of these bills range from expanding loan repayment programs to protecting patients by prohibiting insurance companies from rescinding a patient's health care policy after 24 months (see the full list of bills here). Unfortunately, CAFP's co-sponsored legislation, Assembly Bill 657, authored by Assemblymember Ed Hernandez (D - Baldwin Park), was vetoed by the Governor. AB 657, co-sponsored by the Latino Coalition for a Healthy California, would have established a Health Care Workforce Taskforce to address the urgent shortage of primary care doctors and the under-representation of Latinos and African Americans, among others.

"Access to health care is an issue of life and death," said CAFP past president Carla Kakutani, MD. "The Governor is shirking his duty to protect Californians. He's already demonstrated his commitment to health care reform, but he's forgotten that reform simply will not work unless patients can obtain health care from qualified primary care physicians when they need it." Read CAFP's press release regarding the veto here: Academy Protests Governor's Veto of CAFP's Primary Care Physician Shortage Legislation