AACOM Advocacy Delivers Wins in House Budget Bill—More Work Ahead
Published June 02, 2025
By AACOM Government Relations
Advocacy Federal Policy Higher Education OME Advocate
On May 22, 2025, the House voted 215-214 to pass its budget reconciliation bill, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, H.R. 1 . The legislation would make the 2017 tax cuts permanent and cut federal spending by at least $1.5 trillion over 10 years, majorly reforming health and higher education policies, including federal loan borrowing. Within the sweeping legislation are harmful provisions that eliminate Grad PLUS loans, cap federal borrowing and establish risk-sharing payments for higher education institutions, including osteopathic medical schools. AACOM has been actively opposing these provisions, and has much work to do, but worked with the House Education & Workforce Committee to secure the following amendments that benefit the osteopathic community: Prevention of student loan interest accrual during the first four years of residency-related forbearance Fairer institutional accountability measures tied to medical graduates’ earnings after residency A recent Axios article highlights how the harmful proposals would escalate the physician shortage. "We've got a tsunami of challenges already to deal with," said David Bergman, a senior vice president at the American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine (AACOM). "It just will be exacerbated by a lack of access to reasonably priced student loans." Another recent article in The Guardian further emphasizes the risk. “When there is a stated goal from these policymakers to increase the physician workforce, to increase the number of primary care physicians and expand access in rural and underserved areas – these policies just don’t align with those priorities,” said Bergman. “It’s a really bad workforce decision.” AACOM will now be turning our advocacy to the Senate and encourages the OME community to continue to raise its voice against these policies that make it harder to train the next generation of doctors. |