In advance of the Texas Legislature’s 2025 session, which opened Jan. 14, Texas Medical Association leaders rallied physician membership during a recent virtual event, detailing how its top 10 legislative priorities for the 2025 session originate from and serve physicians’ needs across the state.
TMA’s Council on Legislation collaborated to generate more than 30 different potential issues TMA could “be charged to address based on the feedback from our members and our specialties,” Zeke Silva, MD, who chairs the council, told the more than 200 physicians who tuned into “What You Need to Know: TMA Webinar Previews Legislative Priorities.”
From there, the council narrowed down the list to a top 10, Dr. Silva explained, characterizing that process as a valuable exercise in helping focus attention on the most crucial issues facing Texas physicians.
As physicians’ livelihood is tied to these priorities, TMA calls on members far and wide to take on advocacy in the coming months.
“I'm asking you to not only be engaged, but also to be involved,” said TMA President G. Ray Callas, MD, asking physicians to reach out to those representing them in the Texas House and Senate.
He also encouraged physicians to be courageous, whether testifying before legislators, attending First Tuesdays at the Capitol (commencing Feb. 4), or reaching out on their own as constituents.
“You need to be strong enough for your patients,” Dr. Callas said. “If you're able to talk to a patient, the legislator is just like a patient. You handle your business every single day. Now it's time for us to handle our business … Let's do something for all of Texas. Let's make Texas healthier.”
TMA’s top 10 legislative priorities encompass a broad range of bipartisan interests in three overarching categories: access to care, practice viability, and physician autonomy.
Dr. Silva also discussed how those priorities align with the TMA Board of Trustees’ five-year strategic plan for the association.
The first pillar in the plan, to champion physician leadership, incorporates TMA’s advocacy for physician-led health care; access to care is a primary component of the “cultivate healthy communities” pillar; strengthening practice viability, too, stands as a pillar.
Prominent in TMA’s top 10 priorities is preventing nonphysician practitioners from expanding their scope of practice, instead bolstering the physician workforce and physician leadership of the health care team to ensure quality care. Scope concerns were reflected in the question-and-answer session that closed the webinar, including a query on how the issue may impact legislators of rural and underserved areas.
Regardless of where a patient is located, health care “still needs to be led by a physician,” Dr. Callas answered. “Why are we going to say, if you decide to go to rural Texas, you don't deserve the best health care? Why would we allow for health care to be watered down just because of the rural setting?”
Clayton Stewart, TMA’s chief lobbyist, emphasized that while TMA has forged relationships with legislators on both sides of the aisle, it will mindfully work within the existing political landscape – to be shaped in part by the results of the competitive House speaker race, the likes of which Mr. Stewart says Texas hadn’t seen since 1975. Rep. Dustin Burrows (R-Lubbock) was elected speaker on opening day of the session.
“Know that when we go over [to the Capitol], we have to keep that in mind,” said Mr. Stewart. “We have to be very pragmatic with very, very strategic messaging in order to make sure that our priorities [are heard].”
Mr. Stewart helped close the event by acknowledging the work member physicians have done in past sessions to bolster TMA’s advocacy efforts.
“We appreciate the physician involvement in this organization,” he said. “It really is what makes TMA great.”
Missed this event? Visit TMA’s Grassroots Action Center for more legislative resources.
Also check out the January/February issue of Texas Medicine to learn more about each of the 10 legislative priorities TMA has set forth, and TMA’s State Advocacy webpage for the latest on TMA’s efforts in the Capitol as session progresses.
Phil West
Associate Editor
(512) 370-1394
phil.west[at]texmed[dot]org
Phil West is a writer and editor whose publications include the Los Angeles Times, Seattle Times, Austin American-Statesman, and San Antonio Express-News. He earned a BA in journalism from the University of Washington and an MFA from the University of Texas at Austin’s James A. Michener Center for Writers. He lives in Austin with his wife, children, and a trio of free-spirited dogs.