August 25, 2016
Hello,
This summer has been buzzing with the excitement and drama of both the Olympics and the presidential elections. The Olympics were a wonderful reminder of the power of the human spirit and the beauty of a sport well done. As the Olympics have come to a close, the political machines continue to heat up.
It is our constitutional right and obligation to vote. Something I just learned—What is the constitutional right that shows up most often in the Constitution itself? It’s the right to vote.
As a medical school, we publically support academic medicine’s key legislative priorities as promulgated by the Association of American Medical Colleges. These include:
- encouraging Congress to increase the National Institutes of Health budget by $2B and requesting the new president to prioritize sustained growth for the NIH;
- asking Congress and the new president to increase Medicare GME support to ensure new graduates can complete their physician training;
- requesting Congress and the new president to preserve indirect medical education funding for teaching hospitals, which treat the most complex patients; and
- asking Congress to require Medicare quality programs to take into account socio-demographic factors to ensure hospitals treating the most vulnerable patients are not penalized inappropriately and can continue to provide high-quality care to all patients.
Similar to others who were recently recruited to UTHealth, I am a new Texan and need to register to vote in Texas. To vote in Texas, a voter application must be received in the Voter Registrar’s Office at least 30 days before an election – so to vote in the November 8 national election, the deadline to register is October 11. You can find out if you are registered to vote via the Texas Secretary of State website and through the website you may receive the mailed application to vote.
Here’s a video reminder from President Obama that it’s not that hard to register to vote.
And if that’s not enough encouragement, tomorrow, Aug. 26, the United States celebrates Women’s Equality Day, which commemorates the 1920 certification of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, granting women the right to vote. Regardless of your political persuasion, this is an historic election for the United States with our first female presidential candidate representing a major political party.
Go vote! It’s your right – you’ve earned it!
Warm regards,
Barbara
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