Unless Congress acts by March 1, across-the-board cuts in funding will take effect for all federal agencies, known as sequestration, including a 2 percent cut in Medicare physician payments. At risk is funding for critical agencies, including the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Health Resources and Services Administration, and the United States Agency for International Development.

You can urge your representatives in Congress to stop these funding and payment cuts today. Even if the cuts take effect, your voice will remain a powerful way to raise awareness with lawmakers as the federal budget debate progresses.

IDSA, the HIV Medicine Association (HIVMA), and others are continuing to raise the alarm with lawmakers about the damage that continued cuts, including sequestration, federal funding shortfalls in fiscal years 2013 and 2014, and the threat of additional cuts to offset the debt ceiling will have on biomedical research, public health infrastructure, and the domestic and global response to HIV/AIDS.

IDSA and HIVMA joined with 3,200 organizations earlier this month calling on Congress to preserve funding for ID and public health from further cuts, and also joined with 270 other groups urging lawmakers to protect medical research and NIH from further funding cuts. Both organizations, along with more than 40 other medical societies, also signed onto a full-page newspaper ad (PDF) published in several Capitol Hill newspapers asking Congress to protect funding for physician training at teaching hospitals.

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