2021 Federal Wrap-Up Another Tough Year…But Important Wins for Physicians By Elizabeth McNeil, CMA Vice President of Federal Government Relations 2021 proved to be another challenging year for physicians and a nation continuing to face a raging pandemic. It brought us tough confrontations over COVID-19 mask mandates and vaccination efforts, legal challenges that threatened to overturn the Affordable Care Act (ACA), a renewed fight for racial equity and an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol that challenged our democracy. But through it all, the California Medical Association (CMA) was there, fighting for physicians and ensuring that our nation’s healers were able to continue providing care to patients as the pandemic raged on. The nation inaugurated a new President, Joseph Biden, and the first woman Vice President, California Senator Kamala Harris, who set out to heal a nation experiencing the worst public health crisis in history. As the Biden Administration settled in, key California leaders were placed in important positions in the federal government, giving CMA unprecedented access at the federal level. California Secretary of State Alex Padilla was appointed to the U.S. Senate to fill the vacancy left by Vice President Harris, while and California Attorney General Xavier Becerra was named Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Californians Nancy Pelosi and Kevin McCarthy were both reelected to their respective positions as Speaker of the House and Minority Leader.
Unprecedented Challenges The COVID-19 pandemic will be remembered as one of the most unprecedented and challenging times in our nation’s history. Physicians rose to their calling in heroic numbers to battle the virus, vaccinate the public, and fight for science and truth to protect public health. Physicians demonstrated their compassion and courage – risking their lives and the lives of their families to care for the sickest of patients. CMA successfully fought alongside the American Medical Association (AMA) and others in organized medicine to ensure physicians were able to continue providing quality care to their patients during and beyond the public health emergency. Many physicians either implemented or expanded their use of telehealth as a treatment modality. CMA worked hard to ensure that Congress and the Biden Administration provided telehealth payment parity and waivers to allow physicians to provide a broad range of telehealth and audio-only services in a broad range of settings. CMA made sure policymakers understood how telehealth allowed physicians to meet their patients’ needs during the pandemic.
A Test of Stamina The second year of the pandemic truly tested physician stamina. Frontline physicians fought burnout and massive health staffing shortages; all physicians worked to sustain the viability of their practices;
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SAN JOAQUIN PHYSICIAN
SPRING 2022
