Friday, July 10, 2009

Health Care Reform Update

It is an exciting time in Washington, DC as efforts around comprehensive health care reform continue to move forward in Congress on an aggressive timeline. Legislation is expected to move through Congress by the August recess.

On June 9, Senators Ted Kennedy (MA) and Christopher Dodd (CT) announced the "Affordable Health Choices Act," which is currently being debated in the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee. Senator Max Baucus (MT) is leading a bi-partisan effort in the Finance Committee to create a separate but complementary budget neutral health care reform bill.

The House of Representatives is moving health care reform legislation through three committees that have jurisdiction over health issues: Energy and Commerce; Ways and Means; and, Education and Labor. These three committees, or Tri-Committee, released their united health care reform proposal on June 19.

Click here to learn more about the three key legislative proposals in Congress as reported by the Kaiser Family Foundation. Keep in mind these proposals change on a daily basis.

The National MS Society continues our advocacy efforts on health care reform. We are pushing for the inclusion of long-term care provisions, eliminating the Medicare 24 month disability waiting period, and language that would create a clear pathway, free of regulatory hurdles for the approval of generic biologic drugs.

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