For more information, please contact:
Eli Briggs, Senior Government Affairs Specialist
(ebriggs@naccho.org)
Donna Brown, JD, MPH, Government Affairs Counsel
(dbrown@naccho.org)
Public Health Scores a Victory on the Budget Resolution
NACCHO members recently took action to ensure that necessary funding will be available for public health priorities in the FY2008 budget. During the final weeks of March, the Senate and the House of Representatives passed their budget resolutions setting overall funding limits for FY 2008 federal funding. The allocations given to each appropriations committee and subcommittee are divided up from the overall total number passed in the budget resolution. The Senate passed an important amendment that would give more funding to health programs in the budget. Senators Specter (R-PA) and Harkin (D-IA), the ranking member and chairman of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee for Labor, Health and Human Services and Education, sponsored an amendment to add $2.2 billion to the allocation for health programs. This amendment passed by voice vote. Prior to the vote, more than 60 local health officials contacted their Members of Congress to support the Specter/Harkin Amendment to the FY2008 budget resolution.
The next step in the process is that the House and Senate Appropriations Committees will receive allocation numbers for how much they can spend and subcommittees will begin writing their appropriations bills, with consideration and passage of the bills expected later this spring or summer. NACCHO will alert you at critical points in the process so that you can take action.
Go to the NACCHO Legislative Action Center for other actions you can take on behalf of local public health: http://capwiz.com/naccho/home/. Information is available on advocacy to support the Preventive Health and Health Services Block Grant, which provides funds to many local health departments to engage in preventive health activities, and the Section 317 Immunization program.
New Orleans Health Director Urges Electronic Consumer Health Records
Kevin U. Stephens, Sr., MD, JD, Director of the New Orleans Health Department, spoke at a briefing March 21 attended by Congressional staff and public health advocates. The briefing, "Health Information Technologies to Help Mitigate and Respond to Natural Disasters: From Hurricanes to Avian Flu," was sponsored by the Steering Committee on Telehealth and Healthcare Informatics with NACCHO collaboration.
Dr. Stephens spoke about the experience of people displaced by Hurricane Katrina and the need for electronic consumer health records. After the storm, many primary care and pharmacy providers left the area or their paper records were destroyed. According to Dr. Stephens, an electronic system would ideally allow on-line real time access to medical records, with privacy protection. The optimal system would provide a "continuity of care record," including a virtual patient care system, electronic prescriptions, pay for performance metrics in real time and public health information in real time.
REAL Act Introduced to Provide Comprehensive Sexuality Education
On March 22, Representatives Barbara Lee (D-CA), and Christopher Shays (R-CT) and Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) introduced the Responsible Education About Life (REAL) Act. The bill would create a program, administered by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, to provide comprehensive sexuality education that is age-appropriate, medically accurate, and stresses abstinence, while also educating young people about contraception. Go to NACCHO's Legislative Action Center http://capwiz.com/naccho/home/ and click on "Issues and Legislation" for a copy of the bill text and a list of Members of Congress who have co-sponsored the bill.
***Remember to visit http://capwiz.com/naccho/home/ for all the latest legislative news from Washington.***
