Category: Congress

Tips and tricks for visiting your Senator’s office

  

Letters and phone calls can make a huge difference on Capitol Hill. But to really make Congress understand what nurses see every day on the job, a face-to-face meeting with a lawmaker or their staff is hard to beat. An office visit shows them the human face of your profession and your patients.

Here’s a quick guide to planning your office visit.

How to set up your meeting:

• Pick a day during the week of January 16th when you could stop by your Senator’s local office.

• Pick which of your two U.S. Senators you’re going to meet with. You should choose whichever Senator you prefer.

• Call the Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and ask for your Senator’s office. Tell the staffer you’d like to request a meeting with the staff at your nearest district office about health care – the staffer you speak with can tell you where the closest office is. You probably don’t need to make an appointment, but it’s helpful to make one so you can be sure a knowledgeable staffer will be available.

• Fill out this form to let us know when you’ve set up your visit.

Once you’ve scheduled a date and time:

• Do a little homework and figure out where your Representative stands on repealing the Affordable Care Act. You can often find press releases on their websites. Don’t forget: ANA staff is here to help! Feel free to reach out to us in the comments below.

• Jot down a couple notes about how you’ll introduce yourself – your background in nursing, what kind of patients you see or what classes you teach. The staffers you meet will be grateful to have a little context.

• Decide what YOUR number-one worry is about healthcare in America. Is it providing coverage for people with pre-existing conditions? Is it making sure young people can stay on their parents’ health insurance? Is it lifetime coverage caps, or something else entirely? For more ideas and background, check out the rest of the Capitol Beat blog, and be sure to read this letter we sent to the incoming Trump administration about ANA’s principles for any changes made to our health care system. You don’t have to speak to every issue, just what’s important to you personally.

• Remember, you’ll be meeting with staffers who probably don’t know the ins and outs of healthcare as well as you do. Be ready for them to ask you to explain technical terms.

Last but not least, make sure you thank the staffer for their time and attention!

Any questions, concerns, or clarifications? Let us know in the comments!

ANA-Supported Issues Victorious in Year-End Congressional Sprint

  

Good things come to those who wait…at least, it could be said for the 114th Congress.

On December 7th, the Senate passed a package of important health policy advancements aimed at encouraging health care innovation, improving mental health service coverage, expanding opioid treatment programs, and investing in medical research. The package of bills now moves to the President’s desk for his signature. Throughout the year, ANA advocated strongly for many of the key policy victories contained in last night’s vote, including:

  • The ‘21st Century Cures Act’ seeks to make the Food and Drug Administration’s approval process for new drugs more efficient and invests $4.8 billion in new medical research at the National Institutes of Health
  • Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act,” H.R. 2646, and the Mental Health Reform Act, S. 2680, – represents comprehensive reforms to mental-health programs at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration within Department of Health and Human Services.
  • Funding for Cancer Research: provides funding for $1.8b for Vice President Joe Biden’s “cancer moonshot” program.
  • Fighting the Opioid Epidemic: Provides $1 billion over two years to fight the opioid epidemic. ANA worked closely with Congress and the White House throughout the year to pass legislation and secure enough funding to ensure greater access to treatment services.

Election 2016

  

After a historic election season that never ceased to deliver jaw dropping sound bites, endless material for late night television and new political terms like “scorched earth campaign” we finally reached a conclusion to what seemed like a never ending election season: The citizens of the United States of America turned out at the polls and Donald Trump is now the next President of the United States.

President-Elect Donald Trump’s message to working class voters resonated: Voters turned out “bigly” and put him over the edge in the key swing states of Florida, Ohio, and North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin – which haven’t voted for a GOP candidate since the 80s.

The Presidential headlines dominated the airwaves but Election 2016 also elected a new Congress (the 115th to be exact). The American Nurses Association Political Action Committee (ANA-PAC) officially endorsed 52 federal candidates for the 2016 cycle. All endorsed candidates went through a rigorous review process so that only the most deserving of candidates received ANA’s seal of approval. Of these 52 candidates, 83% won their election.

These candidates span different states, backgrounds, and political parties while sharing a steadfast commitment to serve the nursing community and uphold ANA’s principles. They will be our champions in Washington, and will support legislation that supports both patients and providers.

Check out the full list of candidates here.