“OUR TASK AND GOAL IS TO MAKE SURE THAT ALL ELECTED LEGISLATORS ARE EDUCATED ON THE IMPLICATIONS OF THE MEDICAL ISSUES THEY ARE PRESENTED WITH AND THAT THEY ALL UNDERSTAND THE IMPORTANCE OF GOOD HEALTH POLICY.”
Some of his top goals are making health care coverage more
affordable across the board and recruiting more physicians to small towns like his, where medical offices and hospitals are often among the larger employers in the community. The Republican nominee for the District 59 House seat on
Nov. 6, Dr. Sheffield stands among an unprecedented number of physicians and TMA Alliance candidates who ran or are still running for office in the 2012 elections. After unseating sev- eral incumbents unfriendly to organized medicine’s legislative agenda, in some cases following drawn-out, hotly-contested July runoffs, representatives from the house of medicine are poised to fill as many as eight seats in the Texas House and Senate combined — a first — and keep one seat in the U.S. Congress.
Those battles were accompanied in some cases by an un-
paralleled surge in grassroots activism by the Texas Medical Association Political Action Committee (TEXPAC), TMA’s po- litical advocacy arm; the TMA Alliance, the volunteer force behind the association; and local medical communities, whose members campaigned by foot, by phone, and by mail for their colleague candidates. Over the past decade, Texas doctors have increasingly
sought elected office, according to TEXPAC leaders. Before this election, however, no more than three or four physician or al- liance members ran for or held seats in the state legislature at one time. The once-in-a-decade redistricting process, coupled with the debates over federal health system reform, is partially responsible for this peak in physician candidacies. Even more, perhaps, is a growing awareness among doctors that if they’re not helping drive the health policy decisions that directly impact medicine, someone else will take the wheel, says Houston emergency physician Arlo Weltge, MD, chair of TEXPAC’s Membership Committee. “Government plays an increasingly broad role in the day- to-day lives of patients and physicians. In Texas, Medicaid spending makes up the largest portion of the state budget, and second to that is education. So when two-thirds of the budget goes to health care and education, it depends on pro- fessionals and leaders in those areas to step up and engage in the process.” The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA)
played a role because so much of its implementation depends on what transpires in the state legislatures, and “what hap- pens with PPACA is going to profoundly affect physicians and patients in Texas,” added Joe Todd, MD, a Fort Worth orthopedic surgeon and TEXPAC board chair.
Meanwhile, the Arlo Weltge, MD Susan Todd Joe Todd, MD Jerry Hunsacker, MD
Donna Campbell, MD
redistricting pro- cess reshuffled a number of legis- lative seats and
Mark Shelton, MD
Rep. Charles Schwertner, MD
18 TEXAS MEDICINE November 2012
Sen. Bob Deuell, MD
Rep. John Zerwas, MD
Rep. Susan King
U.S. Rep. Michael Burgess, MD
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