Advocacy Update: What's Ahead for Health Care in the Trump Administration

ACP leaders vow to stay firm but flexible in advocating for physicians and patients

The presidential election results could barely have been more unpredictable, but the response from the American College of Physicians has been what its members have come to expect: ACP will continue its unceasing advocacy for the needs of patients and their physicians.

"Our work goes on no matter who is in the White House," said Bob Doherty, ACP's senior vice president for governmental affairs and public policy. "Like everybody else, we're going through an assessment of our advocacy priorities, recognizing there will be some major challenges to the Affordable Care Act, climate change and other issues."

However, ACP doesn't plan to spend all of its time fighting. "We're also going into this saying we want to achieve bipartisan progress in areas the parties agree on," Doherty said, such as opioid addiction, mental health care, and telemedicine.

Front and center, though, is the fate of the ACA. Republicans, including the president-elect, are committed to repealing it. But, as The Hill reports, "congressional Republicans face internal divisions over how far to go ... without disrupting the lives of millions of Americans."

Read the full article in ACP Advocate.

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