** High Priority **
Please, contact your Congressional offices as soon as possible and
request members to co-sponsor the H.R. 1225 or S.632 bill, or where
appropriate, to thank them for their support.
It will only take a few minutes of your time to write your Senators and
Representatives in your state to ask for their support of Medical
Nutrition Therapy coverage for Cardiovascular disease by signing on as a
co-sponsor of the bill.
Congressman Fred Upton (R-MI) introduced H.R. 1225 on March 17 and
Senator
Larry Craig (R-ID) introduced the Senate version of the bill. Already
the
House bill has 39 co-sponsors (see attached list). S. 632 currently
has 5
co-sponsors.
There are a number of ways to contact Congressional offices. Perhaps
the
easiest is to send an email. Addresses can be found by going to
www.house.gov <http://www.house.gov> or www.senate.gov
<http://www.senate.gov>. If you send an email, PLEASE MAKE SURE THE
PERSON
SENDING THE MAIL STATES THAT THEY ARE A CONSTITUENT.
The message is straightforward:
Heart disease and stroke is the number one killer of
Americans. According to the American Heart Association, diet can
decrease
many significant risk factors for cardiovascular diseases, such as
diabetes,
high blood cholesterol and hypertension resulting in a marked reduction
in
health care costs. Medical nutrition therapy's two-phase process
offers
assessment of nutritional status and development of an individualized
intervention plan to reduce risk, slow disease progression and reduce
symptoms. Building upon the experience of this therapy, which is now
available to Medicare patients with diabetes and kidney diseases,
Congress
can offer an important additional benefit to senior citizens by
approving
the bill.
In order to minimize the price of the new MNT
cardiovascular
benefit, patients are limited to 3 hours of therapy per year in the
2003
version of the bill. This is well within the guides for practice for
RD's.
House co-sponsors of H.R. 1225
Rep Ballenger, Cass [NC-10] Rep Becerra, Xavier [CA-31]
Rep Berkley, Shelley [NV-1] Rep Boehlert, Sherwood L. [NY-24]
Rep Boucher, Rick [VA-9] Rep Capito, Shelley Moore [WV-2]
Rep Cooper, Jim [TN-5] Rep Deutsch, Peter [FL-20]
Rep Duncan, John J., Jr. [TN-2] Rep Emerson, Jo Ann [MO-8]
Rep Eshoo, Anna G. [CA-14] Rep Frost, Martin [TX-24]
Rep Gonzalez, Charles A. [TX-20] Rep Gordon, Bart [TN-6]
Rep Hastings, Alcee L. [FL-23] Rep Hayworth, J. D. [AZ-5]
Rep Hinchey, Maurice D. [NY-22] Rep Hoeffel, Joseph M. [PA-13]
Rep Inslee, Jay [WA-1] Rep Israel, Steve [NY-2]
Rep Jackson-Lee, Sheila [TX-18] Rep Jefferson, William J.
[LA-2]
Rep LaTourette, Steve C. [OH-14] Rep Lewis, Ron [KY-2]
Rep McCarthy, Karen [MO-5] Rep McNulty, Michael R. [NY-21]
Rep Meehan, Martin T. [MA-5] Rep Norton, Eleanor Holmes [DC]
Rep Pastor, Ed [AZ-4] Rep Paul, Ron [TX-14]
Rep Platts, Todd Russell [PA-19] Rep Schakowsky, Janice D.
[IL-9]
Rep Scott, David [GA-13] Rep Sessions, Pete [TX-32]
Rep Smith, Adam [WA-9] Rep Tanner, John S. [TN-8]
Rep Terry, Lee [NE-2] Rep Toomey, Patrick J. [PA-15]
Rep Udall, Mark [CO-2]
Senate co-sponsors of S. 632
Sen Bingaman, Jeff [NM] Sen Collins, Susan M. [ME]
Sen Rockefeller, Jay [WV] Sen Sarbanes, Paul S. [MD]
Sen Warner, John W. [VA]
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Apr 01 2003 - 13:04:03 PST