Washington, D.C. – U.S. Rep. Allyson Schwartz received the 2010 Joseph F. Boyle Award for Distinguished Public Service from the American College of Physicians (ACP) for her outstanding service toward improving the delivery of health care in America. In May 2009, Schwartz introduced the Preserving Patient Access to Primary Care Act, which served as a blueprint for the primary care provisions in the health reform law.

The Joseph F. Boyle Award is given to a current or former government official or physician acting in an official capacity who has provided outstanding public service toward improving the delivery of health care.

The congresswoman was selected for this honor because of her leadership during the health care reform debate to ensure that all individuals have access to health care coverage and a primary care physician.

“I was honored to receive this prestigious award and to be recognized by this extraordinary group of physicians,” Schwartz said. “I share their commitment to improving access to primary care and I have worked successfully to ensure that primary care is the foundation of our health care delivery reform. We now have a law that includes provisions I authored that increases payments to primary care providers, eliminates co-payments for preventive services, and makes significant increases in loan repayment initiatives to encourage more medical students to choose primary care specialties.”

The ACP, an organization representing 129,000 internal medicine physicians and medical students, presented the Congresswoman with the award at their Leadership Day Dinner Tuesday evening in Washington DC.

Schwartz’s brother, Neal S. Young, MD, also received an award from the ACP in Toronto earlier this year. Young received the Award for Outstanding Work in Science Related to Medicine. He is Chief of the Hematology Branch of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and Director of the Trans-NIH Center for Human Immunology, Autoimmunity, and Inflammation.

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