Making our Voice Heard and Leading the Way to Advance Health in America

Two presidents that America honors with a federal holiday on Monday shared a number of memorable traits. George Washington and Abraham Lincoln were blessed with the gifts of vision, courage and leadership — qualities that played a central role in guiding the country through the enormous challenges of their times.

Both men also understood the power of words and ideas to inspire their fellow citizens and light the fire of progress. The American ideal of democracy is the enduring legacy of Washington, and the fact that we are still the United States of America is due to Lincoln’s refusal to allow the nation to split apart.

It is important for us to continue to exercise the principles of democracy that Washington and the Founding Fathers fought so hard for and speak up, asking hard questions of candidates in this election year and evaluating their thinking on the issues that affect our field.

To that end, AHA’s We Care We Vote is an opportunity to encourage good citizenship through voter registration and participation in the electoral process.

Our initiative suggests questions that place a candidate on record about many of the issues most important to our field, such as: What actions have you taken to support your hospitals and health systems during these uncertain times? What efforts do you support to address the ongoing health care worker shortage and protect health care workers from rising rates of physical and verbal abuse? What proposals do you support to expand access to behavioral health care?

Their answers matter a great deal.

During this political season, we must also make clear to our elected officials that despite the challenges we face, we are united as a field in facing similar issues and having common solutions regardless of location, size, ownership, or type of hospital.

This means a united front in favor of preserving the moratorium on Medicaid disproportionate share hospital cuts and staving off harmful so-called site-neutral payment policies that don’t account for the differences in the care hospitals provide 24/7.

This means continuing to shine a spotlight on the practices of some commercial insurers that do not meet the letter or spirit of the law in terms of the coverage they provide.

This means pushing back against chronic underpayments from Medicare that do not meet the cost of care, continue to put hospitals’ ability to provide quality and accessible care 24/7 to all who need it at risk, and hobble hospitals’ ability to fight growing cybersecurity threats, reinvest in people and communities, expand or upgrade facilities, or to pursue the research and technological advances that advance health for all.

There is no light between us on these and many other issues.

To paraphrase Abraham Lincoln, the better angels of our nature are the dedicated caregivers who do their best every minute of the day for the people and communities they serve.

This President’s Day, let’s put the tools of democracy and unity to use once again, and stand firm for the future of America’s health care.