Breathe Freely
Make healthcare reform work for you
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
8:30-10:30 am – Breakfast Briefing
11:00 am-1:30 pm – Asthma Health Expo
Free asthma screening – Consultation with allergists – State-of-the-art lung inflammation tests
Rayburn Foyer, Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, DC
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No more asthma deaths: It’s not only possible; it’s a goal long overdue.
At AANMA’s 12th annual Asthma Awareness Day Capitol Hill On May 6th, we will ask Congress to take no-nonsense steps to save lives and dramatically reduce the $20 billion burden asthma places on families.
For more than 20 years, American tax dollars have supported federal programs aimed at eliminating suffering and death due to asthma – programs mandated by Congress and run by agencies such as the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Environmental Protection Agency.
Ironically, our dollars have also been used to prevent patient access to the care these programs say are necessary.
We know what it takes to put patients and parents back to work and kids back to school and on the playground where they belong – without asthma symptoms or soaring healthcare costs. It takes patient access to specialty care; personalized written asthma action plans; strategic use of medications and inhalation devices; ongoing monitoring; and environmental management, as outlined in the NIH Guidelines for the Diagnosis and Management of Asthma.
Instead, short-sighted federal and private insurance health policies focus on limiting medication choices to only the least expensive drugs or requiring patients to fail (suffer) one, two or three therapies before allowing proven treatments they needed all along.
Allergy & Asthma Network Mothers of Asthmatics is calling on Congress to take the following steps to stop asthma deaths and eliminate wasteful spending now:
- Encourage coordination among federal health agencies to ensure all patients receive the benefits of NIH treatment guidelines and research, EPA Indoor Air Quality initiatives and CDC surveillance and demonstration programs.
- Ensure federal funds favor those programs and services in states that use the NIH Guidelines to provide, not limit, individualized asthma treatment plans. Congress should not support any policy, service or insurer that is engaged in any activity to limit, prevent or discriminate against patient access to Guidelines-level care, including but not limited to patient education, diagnostic testing, environmental controls, monitoring and medications.
- Ensure graduate medical education and specialty training programs continue to produce qualified specialists equipped to provide Guidelines-level care to patients.
This practical, evidence-based, patient-centered and disease-specific plan is a model for successful healthcare reform. It is based on the belief that all children and adults with asthma want to be well and would rather overcome breathing difficulties than struggle with revolving-door emergency department visits, hospitalizations and heroic life-saving measures.
We simply want to breathe.
The Obama administration is determined to move healthcare reform measures forward, so there’s no time like the present to make our move – together! Join us on Wednesday, May 6th for Asthma Awareness Day Capitol Hill 2009. Health policies based solely on cheap drugs are too expensive for America’s economy.
Related posts:
- Asthma Awareness Day Capitol Hill Podcast part 4
- Asthma Awareness Day Capitol Hill Podcast part 1
- Asthma Awareness Day Capitol Hill Podcast part 2
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