CIR Residents Take the Health Care Fight to the Hill

Report by Dr. Davida Flattery, CIR Regional Vice President

Several CIR leaders traveled to Washington DC on June 24 and 25 to join with doctors and nurses from around the country in telling our elected officials that our patients can no longer wait for meaningful health care reform.  We attended a candle light rally and participated in a training session with other SEIU members before heading to the Congressional and Senate offices. 

There we met with elected officials from our home states and told stories about our patients, highlighting the need for affordable, accessible and high-quality care. We communicated the importance of a strong public health insurance option and that health care reform must truly be affordable for all, or we haven’t fixed the problem.

The consistent feedback that we received from our elected officials is that they take the recommendations of doctors very seriously. However they do not hear our voices loudly or often enough. We returned to our home states keenly aware of the critical role that we as doctors play in this national debate on health care.