Conservative groups, including Tea Party Patriots, Americans for Tax Reform and Independent Women’s Voice, coalesce to offer their support for AMAC-sponsored legislation that increases access to quality health care for poor individuals and families and drives down Medicaid expenditures.
January 27, 2020
The Honorable Daniel Webster
1210 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
The Honorable Colin Peterson
2204 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Dear Congressmen Webster and Peterson,
The undersigned organizations support the Physician Pro Bono Care Act, H.R. 856. This important legislation allows physicians, dentists, and other healthcare providers to take a charitable tax deduction for providing pro-bono healthcare to Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) eligible patients. By moving low-income patients from emergency rooms to offices and clinics, this legislation could save billions in government healthcare costs.
Under current law, healthcare providers can only receive a charitable deduction by volunteering their time through a 501(c)3 organization, oftentimes outside of their own communities. By providing physicians with a charitable deduction for treating Medicaid and CHIP eligible patients in their communities, this legislation will provide low-income families and individuals greater access to healthcare. Additionally, this concept will reduce the administratively burdensome and costly reimbursement processes of both Medicaid and CHIP. In sum, this legislation creates an opportunity for doctors to help respond to a critical need for healthcare services in their communities by offering the incentive of a simple tax deduction rather than burdensome reimbursement paperwork for Medicaid and CHIP programs.
Medicaid spending has increased dramatically, putting a strain on both state and federal budgets. H.R. 856 provides an opportunity to lower state and federal governments spending, with doctors helping to reduce the number of Medicaid and CHIP payouts. This simple tax deduction is selfexecuting in the normal tax filing processes of the physicians further decreasing administrative costs created by government subsidized healthcare. Importantly, this legislation does not prevent physicians or qualifying individuals from using Medicaid or CHIP, it simply adds an additional option for low-income patients to receive localized healthcare services. With over 70 million Medicaid and CHIP eligible individuals, this legislation provides a genuine opportunity to save billions of dollars in Medicaid and CHIP expenditures over the next decade while keeping more low-income patients out of emergency rooms.
If enacted, the Physician Pro Bono Care Act would help millions of Medicaid and CHIP eligible individuals and families receive quality healthcare from physicians of their choice as opposed to institutionalized services while saving the government billions of dollars.
Signed,
Bob Carlstrom
President,
AMAC Action
