Welcome to CIR’s Political Action Center

CIR works to advance issues on a local and national level that impact medical education and training, patient safety, and access to access to quality, affordable health care for all.  

When The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services proposed drastic cuts to Medicaid which would severely impair your ability to provide care in hospitals, clinics and emergency rooms across the country–including the elimination of GME funding–we knew we needed your help.

Too many politicians thought that residents are students whose training takes place in libraries and lecture halls.

So we asked you to share stories of your day-to-day life as indispensable front-line providers of care on the floors, in the units, in the clinics, and in the E.R.s of your hospital.

We asked you to write to your members of Congress to support the Protecting the Medicaid Safety Net Act of 2008 (HR 5613).

And many of you volunteered to visit your member of Congress on behalf of HR 5613.

Your words were so moving that we wanted to share with you some of the best stories we received.

Read the stories submitted by your fellow members across the country.

No doubt about it–CIR was heard loud and clear in the halls of Congress. Last week, HR 5613 unanimously passed the House Energy and Commerce Committee on a 46-0 vote.

And on Wednesday, the House of Representatives passed the bill 349 to 62–more than enough votes to overturn a threatened Presidential veto!

We still have more work to do. The bill now must pass the Senate with a veto-proof margin to ensure that the moratorium on these Medicaid regulations will be extended, and GME funding will be safe for another year. But some prominent Senate Republicans are already asking their colleagues to reject the bill and any moratoria on these Medicaid cuts.

Members of Congress who are supportive of the bill are now asking us for even more stories to use in their speeches and their arguments in support of GME funding.

We still need your help!

Write to your Senators and urge them to support H.R. 5613

All of us are inspired by the challenges you face on a daily basis as resident doctors, and the care you provide to the underserved and those in most need. Your story is as effective as any argument we could make on how urgent the need is to preserve GME funding.

This is an emergency situation. CIR's voice can and must be heard in the halls of the U.S. Congress.

Urge Congress to Reinstate the 20/220 Pathway Formula

But now Congress is discontinuing the 20/220 pathway formula. Under the proposed new formula, residents will either have to begin repaying their student loans right away or go into loan forbearance--adding more interest on top of their already-high debt burden.

With a median debt burden for medical school graduates of nearly $150,000 for private institutions and over $119,000 for public, the cost for a medical degree has never been higher.

And with 86% of new doctors carrying debt from medical school, you know someone who will be affected by this change in the laws governing student loans.

In fact, it's probably you!

Let Congress know that the first years of residency are stressful enough. Sign our petition to reinstate the 20/220 pathway formula.